Action Adventure / Between Crosshairs
New York City…
For the generations, it has been the city of lights, shopping, money, and opportunity to its visitors; and a city of grime, crime, traffic, noise and assholes to some of its more cynical natives.
A hot bright sun beat down onto the skyscrapers that crowned the city, like a lamp shining on a huge pincushion. Yet you would have to be inside one of those buildings to even see the sun in that part of town, as it didn’t turn up above the streets until lunch, which had been a few hours earlier.
Between the buildings, behind the streets, and in the back of people’s minds, were the labyrinths of alleyways. These dirty concrete corridors played home to a colourful array of bums and muggers, usually the same people, after their next hit, drink or fuck.
Within one of the quieter passages of this sinister maze, one man was looking into the eyes of another, a sneaky bastard, who was right now probably trying to think of something clever to say, some kind of riddle to throw his captor off his enquiry, some kind of question to answer his own.
“You’re a fucking psycho!” Spluttered his victim breathlessly.
Close enough.
For the first man, it had been a long day, a boring day, and now he was getting something that he usually didn’t get…
Impatient.
“I’ll ask you one more time, nice and slow. But I swear, that if I get called another name, I’ll cut off your balls.” He stated simply to the wide-eyed man who he had pinned with one hand against the wall, the other holding a Walther P22 to his head, its blue laser-aiming module dancing on his quarries brow.
“Who. Sent. You?”
“I told you, I don’t know names… they only tell me what they think I need to know!”
The interrogator considered this, it had been the tenth time that his victim had to repeat himself, and this looked like the kind of guy who would sell his mother to a circus if it saved his ass.
“What’s your name?”
The desperate man subconsciously looked to the top right of his own head, and instantly gave away his oncoming lie.
“Names Ray.”
It would do.
“Ok Ray, so tell me what they thought you did need to know.”
“The only thing they told me was that the hunt is in two weeks, and they want you there, I swear!” Wheezed ‘Ray’ between gasps. “I swear to you that’s all that the message said, except that if I delivered it to you then I’d be paid well for it. The message came yesterday, and now here I am! Please don’t kill me!” The man started crying and his words started morphing into sobs near the end of his sentence.
“Cut the dramatic bullshit Ray or I’ll give you something to really cry about.”
The liar called ‘Ray” stopped as his interrogator was still thinking of how far he could go before he made any real mess or noise so that he could get his answers. He could probably break some bones, hell, he could shoot the coward and no one would turn up, probably wouldn’t even make the evening news. But the man seemed to be honestly telling the truth, so he loosened his grip around his throat and let him drop to the floor.
“ Ok, so how did you manage to find me in one day?” he asked, his gun still aimed and ready.
“Are you kidding me? Finding the Wolf? Its no sweat when you know the right people, but it would have taken longer if I hadn’t already heard you was here.” Replied ‘Ray’, almost laughing at the idea of difficulty in tracking down one of the world’s most-wanted bounty hunters. “So… are you gonna kill me?” he asked, as his voice grew serious.
The man called Wolf seemed to think about this before answering.
“Well on one hand, it stops a little shit like you from getting rich and makes me feel better about myself.. While on the other, it means there’s more blood to get out of my jacket later, and one less bullet in my magazine…” he said, as if actually thinking about it. His mind was already made up on that matter. He was just thinking about anything else that he should ask, or whether or not he should follow this pathetic excuse of a messenger and see where it took him.
Ah screw it…
“How many, how much, and dead or alive?”
“I don’t know, I keep telling ya. But I’ve heard about these types of hunts and they’re usually the big money. But, like I said, that’s just from what I hear.”
Wolf had expected this, in fact he would have been suspicious if the man had known any of the details of a hunt. Usually, only the organisers and the assessor to the funds, the reward, were the only ones who knew before anyone else. But once or twice, mainly when arranged by terrorist groups, Wolf had found a clue a few days before the hunt, and had got a head-start.
He lowered his weapon, and said, “Tell them I’ll think about it, and that if they plan to approach me, then next time do so when I’m not hunting, or call my agent.”
“But you’re always hunting.” Replied the New Yorker gruffly, while rubbing his neck.
Wolf smiled.
“I have a very good agent.”
And with that he lowered his gun and took off.
Chapter 1
Welhiemer
NEW YORK CITY
USA
2309 HOURS
FRIDAY
14 AUGUST
The nights were still warm at this time of year, and most of the people who walked the streets below him were looking forward to the fall. They all talked of seeing the parents, or taking the kids to some out-of-the-way house with a tyre swing and a lake so they could forget the city for a while and just watch the leaves change. Of course they never had time in New York. It was eleven p.m and most people had just got home from work, courtesy of the jam’s, and the accidents, and the sudden emergencies, which were part of everyday city life.
The taxi’s scoured the streets like vultures looking for weak prey, and from where he was above them, Wolf could see that they were ready to swoop in for the kill on the drunk, but more importantly rich, lawyers, judges and other well-to-do figures from the ballroom of the late Don Santica Elsprenzo’s mansion.
The Don had been assassinated in his home in Venezuela and since no rival gangs or crime families had claimed responsibility, it was put down to the consequences of a drug-deal gone wrong, as these things usually are. The assassination had shocked the crime world who had thought him untouchable, not to mention the vast amount of policemen and Government agents who had longed to pull the trigger themselves.
His wife, well, his second wife – a twenty-three year-old model only a year younger than his daughter from his first marriage- had inherited his entire crime network in Venezuela. Whereas his daughter, whom he had wanted the best for since her mother died, had inherited his huge amounts of wealth he had hidden in different banks and properties all over the U.S and some in Europe.
At twenty-four, she was priced at 42.3 million U.S dollars, and she didn’t waste it.
Oh no, she spent her time socialising and cavorting with A-list celebrities from New York and L.A. Also, after renouncing her drug-dealing bastard of a father, she had sought out a singing contract and was going to record her first music video soon, thanks to her father’s good looks and her mother’s great voice, which she had inherited with interest.
Another fascinating thing about Lucia de Santa Maria (for she kept her mothers maiden-name) was that she was soon to be married to the handsome young owner of a goldmine in South Africa, a Mr Frederick Welheimer Jr, who was among the fifty richest men, the ten most eligible bachelors, and the single prey for the bounty hunt that Wolf was taking part in, reward: 1 Million dollars, American.
It seemed that Frederick Jr was going to sell some of the companies stock, priced at $69 million apiece and rising thanks to the new gold seams found in the Congo, to some men from the Italian Mafioso, the kind of men that ran child-porn rings, sold drugs, and helped terrorists. Apparently he wasn’t the nobleman his father, Frederick Snr, was.
Because of this his uncle and his half-brother decided not to forsake the name of Welheimer Mining Co. and would have him killed, allegedly, by one of his “deranged” business associates.
Unfortunately, because good, fast, and reliable assassins were hard to come by with the war in full swing, bounty hunters were the next best option. They did what they had to do fast so that they wouldn’t be beaten to it, and they did it well so that they established a reputation. They worked for relatively cheaper price, and were fine with twenty-four hour deadlines such as this. Plus assassins would sometimes take an advance on the money and screw up the job, whereas bounty hunters wouldn’t stop until the job was finished and the money was in their accounts.
Wolf watch from the living room of the neighbours house that faced the mansion diagonally. Because its owners were evidently rich enough to go on holiday for ninety-three percent of the year, it had been an obvious choice, with only two guards to sneak past, who were still guarding the house downstairs, and a security system that Wolf had cracked like a nut, it was the perfect place from which to stakeout the mansion and see who his competition was.
Gabriel “Wolf” Sullivan was a twenty-eight year-old bounty hunter, and a pretty good one at that. Standing at six foot, he was broad, well built, and muscular like a boxer. He was handsome and had black cropped spiky hair and grey eyes, which went yellow in the light thanks to a genetic disorder. They were currently behind a pair of NVG’s as he readied himself for tonight’s competition by steadily checking then re-checking his business-looking Steyr 9mm TMP (Tactical Machine Pistol), a small submachine gun that he was hoping he wouldn’t have to use tonight. He also had his P-22 in his leg holster, and his favourite weapon, a 50.Cal Desert Eagle in his under-arm holster. Aside from all this he had his usual arsenal of weapons hidden in and about the area, the rest were sitting in a motel a street away, and his Aston Martin Vanquish, which was parked nearby the mansion, came with a Heckler & Koch MP-5SD machine pistol, and an M72 grenade launcher under the seats.
He had been told that the Raptors were in Peru, going after a drug dealer, but for a smaller price than this, likewise with Mammoth and Dragon. The Reaper Brothers were in Iran, after some of Saddam Hussein’s shadier associates, but they had been there for two months without success as far as he knew.
As for the others, Sphinx would be here, he always got the tip-off on the African kills, some kind of link to the Assessor. Wolf’s contacts at JFK had called in and confirmed that Zorro would probably show too, but in America the Mexican had his own friends and may have got there already.
So with most of the harsher competition out of the picture he felt pretty confident about tonight’s operation, although the feeling didn’t stick around. If he let it sink in to deeply than something would surely go amiss thanks to his own lack of preparation, so he went through his relatively simple plan again.
He figured the party would end at around two. That’s when the best time to strike would be, when the guests were gone and the targets fiancée would be fast asleep, thinking he had probably been driven home by his security man after too much wine. The Assessor required the Targets heart, head, or body, to credit the kill, and, as always, the first to appear with one of those items was the victor.
The Assessor this time round was Frank Albany, owner of two banks in the Cayman Islands, and one of the richest Assessors in practice in the world of modern-day bounty-hunting. He usually dealt with the fancier clients, or at least clients who were worth more than $20 million. Where there was Albany, there was cash, big steaming heaps of it, ready for the first man to claim.
He finished going over his guns on his body while continuing through the plan in his head. He would kill the target quietly and secure his fiancée for added safety; then put the body in a body-bag, which he had disguised as a laundry bag. With the servants totally busy thanks to the parties massive clean-up they wouldn’t notice him put the bag down the laundry-chute and pick it up as a flustered new-guy who worked there and had left some washing too late. He even doubted it would come to that much detail in the end. He would then pick up the bag and fly with it through the usual channels to Cape Town for the reward.
That is of course, if everything went to plan.
But it never did.
So he had his Machete handy, hidden in its sheath that was strapped to his thigh, its hilt concealed behind a flap of material in his pocket, which would be easy to move if he needed to grip it quickly to nab the guy’s head, the heart was messier and usually took too long.
He was ready for the long wait ahead, and watched through his NVG’s as the guards exchanged jokes, probably about their past experiences with drunken celebrities, and the stories they’d sold.
Wolf didn’t understand them, they spent all day kissing butt because these people were famous then came home to their own buddies and said “These celebrities we follow everywhere are so pathetic” before running off to get Mr DeNiro another cigar.
But that wasn’t his problem, if they wanted to do that then fine, but they would probably be better in the Marines or –
Sphinx was moving.
If he hadn’t been looking at that exact spot at that exact moment he would have missed it, something which he would beat himself up over later, the entire point of his line of work was to stay ahead of the game, and the game almost won that time.
Almost…
He smiled as he watched the South African, an old captain from the elite Reconnaissance Commando’s. He was a tall man, about 6’3, he had brown hair, which he let lay flat on his head, above blue eyes. He was currently wearing thin-rimmed silver reflective sunglasses and an Armani suit. He strode right into the party, the guards thought that he was some official by the looks of things, and, with a final quick glance behind him, disappeared from Wolf’s sight behind the doorway.
Sphinx had left the Reccondo’s after his entire unit was wiped out, all except him, in a racial purge. Apparently, regardless of a change to democracy, a few of the black Reccondo’s still hated the sight of a white man in their special force. So one day Sphinx’s all-white unit, sixteen men in total, had been woken up at three in the morning and taken to a field in blindfolds and cuffs, they had been told they were to play a game, hide and seek, commando style.
Only Sphinx had come back.
The rest, including his little brother, had been mercilessly slaughtered as the men hunted them through the forest, their assault rifles roaring over the melody of the wildlife.
Since then, Sphinx rarely said a word, hence his nickname, the other reason for it was that when he did speak it was often in riddles making it hard to figure out what he was getting at, so usually he was quiet and solitary.
Wolf had to think fast, his careful planning had been turned into a waste of time and now what time remained was draining fast, and Sphinx was moving faster.
What the fuck was he going to do now?
What he always did in these situations, he decided.
Improvise.
No time to think, he had to move. He picked up his Steyr after scanning the room for betrayals of his presence, and on finding none he left without a sound.
After quickly fiddling with the security system so that it would reactivate on a timer he crept into the bathroom and eased the window open.
He climbed down the drainpipe next to the bathroom while the guards were playing poker in the kitchen below it. Wolf then ran full pelt across the lawn, hopping occasionally to avoid obvious infrared beams and tripwires strewn haphazardly across it, and all the while assembling a brief plan in his mind of what the fuck to do now.
As soon as he hit the street he started walking calmly so as not to attract attention, this was a skill he had mastered, he could have walked through a Third-Reich reunion dressed as an orthodox Rabbi and none would have noticed.
As he walked he thought about the guard by the front gate and quickly went through the various pieces of information he had learnt about the man while watching him earlier.
The man was tall and broad shouldered, handsome but intimidating, and, from what Wolf had noticed earlier, strangely outgoing and happy to the guests for someone whose job it was to wave through limos. He was obviously more brawn than brains, placed in his position to scare away would-be gatecrashers and paparazzi members while impressing the guests with his employers taste in security. This wasn’t the kind of man you could bribe, those kinds were usually little snakes that were so bored with their jobs that they didn’t give a rats ass. No, this man seemed happy doing what he did, and so appealing to his loyalty was the key to avoiding confrontation.
Wolf had played this kind of fool before, and didn’t even slow his pace to think the situation through more as he walked straight towards the big friendly/terrifying giant.
“Good evening, Pete Rendell, CIA.” He said, giving the guard a fantastic fake of a CIA badge, while doubting that this gorilla had ever seen one in the first place.
The guard lost his composure and started to reach for his radio as he looked Wolf up and down, taking in his black Flak jacket on top of his black turtle-neck sweater, his rugged spiky hair and his rubber-soled shoes, which were also black. In fact everything he wore was black, and if he was indeed CIA then he seemed fitted for some kind of hit.
“There’s no need for alarm, I’m the guy who keeps the rest of them off Miss de Santa Maria’s back.” He said quickly, as the guard was halfway towards calling for his superior. “Only she asked me to come tonight and monitor another guest, a South African who she thinks might cause a little trouble over some silly business deal. Anyway I’m here, I’ve just been searching his apartment, but I didn’t realise the occasion was so formal. So I need to be let in quietly, I have a suit upstairs. But if we make a big deal of it then there might be a scene and the Miss wouldn’t want that now would she?” He was using a tone of voice that didn’t really expect any kind of hassle at all as the guard should know damn well that this kind of thing was above him. He led the befuddled man with one arm around the shoulders towards the gate.
“And I will personally mention how cooperative you have been to Miss de Santa Maria if you don’t mention my own error and late-timing, hmm?”
It was good enough for the guard, he could easily deny ever meeting the guy while still ensuring that his own ass wasn’t in the fire. He opened the gate and, after looking up and down the length of the driveway, hurried him into the grounds and pointed out the mansions main door, before going back to his post.
Gabriel hurried up the driveway until he was sure he was out of the guard’s sight, before getting into the shadows of the hedge that ran up the length of the drive and scoping out the front door.
It had a single man on it, short and lean wearing a cap and a blank expression, a parking attendant.
Wolf let his eyes wonder up the rest of the drive to the car park while thinking of how he was going to stroll into this unnoticed. The parking attendant was probably less loyal then the gate guard and probably a lot smarter too, besides that he had been taught never to give the same story too many times as it makes it easier for people to figure out who did what later. He considered the possibility of just killing the poor bastard, but he had two problems with it, one was that the guy was unarmed and quietly doing his job so it would be too easy, the second problem was that he wouldn’t get paid for it.
Time was running out though, and Sphinx could have even bagged the head and left by now, he needed to move fast.
Then an answer flashed into his brain, something which he had learnt at a party in Italy.
He stayed low and followed the road, making sure to avoid the lights of the house at the same time. As he had hoped, the car park was unguarded, with all the security around the premises it didn’t have to be. It was also full of some of the nicest automobiles ever made. Wolf quickly ran to each in turn and, using a present given to him by the Secretary of Defence after saving his nephew from some ex-Al Quieda die-hards, opened their bonnets one at a time.
The present was a small metal block, resembling a Zippo lighter, with a hole at one end that grew bigger or smaller depending on the lock. The hole opened when a button was pressed and an ultra-frequency scanner scanned the locks pins and chafes using Echolocation. It then let two of its possible seventy prongs spring out and get to work. It opened each lock in seconds and Wolf found what he was looking for in the fourth car he tried.
He pulled out the suit; which the owner had bought, in case of some kind of mishap occurred (i.e: he threw up) and left in his car.
He put it on, but made sure his weapons were close at hand, it was big fit despite his flak jacket
After closing the door and stashing his remaining clothing back into the car, he slapped a small metal cylinder on the bottom of it and pressed one of its three possible buttons, making it latch on magnetically.
Going back to the main door, this time in plain sight and slightly stumbling, he told the attendant, in his best drunken slur, that someone had spilt coffee on his shirt so he had changed it.
The attendant nodded and smiled somewhat embarrassedly but kept his eyes fixed ahead as Wolf continued inside.
He was confronted with a pair of beautifully crafted doors and as the two servants standing either side of them opened them, his jaw almost hit the floor in awe.
The hall was gorgeous, a marble floor and spiral staircase, a million-dollar chandelier, and a huge painting of the crucifixion on the ceiling, with the blessed virgin crying at her son and Messiah’s feet. But more than anything the hallway was…
Empty…
“On your right, sir, I do believe.” Said one of the doormen, who was also facing forward and not making a single expression.
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” He replied sluggishly before heading for his right.
It led to a pair of double doors, open already, and the huge ballroom beyond it, as soon as he heard the servants at the front door greeting new guests he dropped his drunken act immediately in order to avoid suspicion from bouncers or guests alike.
If the hallway was beautiful, it was a shrivelled turd compared to this room.
The ballroom was indeed huge, massive in fact, and it was so intricately decorated, with its golden floors, rich-blue curtains, and some excellent pieces of artwork on the walls that almost made Wolf lose concentration. He quickly busied himself, while picking up a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter holding a tray, in locating the whereabouts of the target or Sphinx.
Have to move, have to move, have to move.
There!
He saw them both at once, the target by the buffet table talking to a friend while eating a few grapes, and Sphinx a little further up, spooning some banoffee pie and trying to look bored and therefore not worth approaching.
As he walked towards Fredrick, Wolf saw Sphinx notice him, put his pie down and start to do the same. Wolf had a head start but Sphinx was closer.
The friend that the target had been chatting with left and he too was about to walk away, until Wolf whistled loudly, and he looked round.
With Sphinx right behind Welheimer, Wolf beckoned him over hurriedly, and with a puzzled look the Gold Mine owner obeyed.
Wolf was ten feet away when he saw Sphinx draw his claws, his fighting claws, sharp, long, blades that were clutched and used as extensions of the hand.
Sphinx ran forward and took a clean swing in the middle of the sixhundred guests.
And Frederick Welheimer Jr continued walking for about a second while his head fell off his shoulders and dropped to the floor, followed quickly by his body.
Well, there goes that plan…
There was a scream as all eyes were drawn to the headless corpse, which spewed violent gushes of blood from its neck, and then all hell broke loose.
At least seven women fainted, most screamed, and a few, men alike, were sick.
One of the bouncers who had seen Sphinx kill his boss pulled out his Glock and started to aim, but Sphinx was quicker, drawing out his South-African made Mechem BXP 9mm he sent the guard to the floor with a three-burst shot to the chest.
That was it, everyone ran, and they ran screaming, guests trampled over each other and kicked and punched to fight their way towards the exits.
Wolf drove his way comfortably through the crowd, dropping his glass of champagne and bringing his hand into his inner jacket pocket. He knew that by now no one from inside the ball could have reached the car park yet, not in this chaos. Keeping this in mind he calmly depressed the button of the detonator in his jacket and activated the RDX in the small cylinder he had left on the bottom of the car he had stolen the suit from.
Immediately two things happened, the first thing was that the car exploded, sending itself, the clothes that he had left in its trunk, and some of the surrounding vehicles into a catastrophic blaze of fury that made most of the people in the ballroom fall flat on their backs in surprise. The second was that he brought out his TMP and Desert Eagle and aimed them over the now-fallen innocent guests so that he could focus on the insane South-African bounty hunter who seemed to have caused them a bit of bother.
He aimed at the ex-Reccondo just as the man picked up the targets head and turned back with one arm firing into the crowd, killing four people and making Wolf take cover.
Sphinx smiled as he saw his rival dive out of the way and turned – to be met by the sight of a swinging right hook, which connected with his face and sent him to the floor.
The Mexican above bore his own smile as he put his Rapier to Sphinx’s throat and started talking.
“My my, Not one for tact, hombre? Heh heh, no matter, but I hope you run faster when you are running from the men who now want to kill you.” Said Zorro, his sword barely a millimetre away from Sphinx’s flesh.
“You better hope I don’t run faster than you, you Mexican fuckwit.” Said Sphinx, to the surprise of Zorro, who had been expecting a usual reply of silence, and was a little taken back.
“No riddle this time? No matter.”
Bullets whipped past as the Mexican sliced his usual little ‘z’ into Sphinx’s left cheek.
“I’ll let you go now, but you’ve been marked Sphinx my friend, I’ll be back for you one day.”
Zorro still smiled and shoved his sword into the head, skewering it, while at the same time he covered Sphinx with a silver Walther P99.
From out of the blue a bullet sliced past his ear, and he looked up to see that the Wolf was here too, and not a very happy Wolf at that.
Wolf was running for him as Zorro turned and dashed away smashing through one of the locked French doors and continuing through the garden.
When Wolf came to where Sphinx still lay he jumped over him, spun, and fired a round from his TMP into Sphinx’s right knee before completing his turn and continuing his chase through the same door.
Sphinx roared with pain and clutched at his leg with one hand as he fired his Mechem into the approaching guards with his other.
He looked over to the targets body while he fired and drew his claws.
Head was gone, but they would make do with his heart…
From outside the Mansion was a curious, if somewhat chilling spectacle as people came gushing out of doors, and even windows, to escape the killers inside, all the while the fire in the car park blazed on, acting like a homing beacon to the approaching police/press cars and helicopters.
In fact, spectators who did witness the scene, were so caught up in what was going on from the front that they seemed to miss two men shrouded in shadow fleeing the back of the building, one after the other, and taking off into the night.
Wolf ran hard, but Zorro was fast, and he strained to keep the pace as he whizzed along the small network of alleys behind the Mansion and between the houses surrounding it. He had stopped firing after his initial shot because he would have to aim well, and would probably miss, and unlike Hollywood, in real life, ammo is precious.
He didn’t really want to kill the Mexican, he didn’t really want to kill anyone but the target, but sometimes it was necessary, especially when the money was this good. Sphinx was merciless, he would kill anyone, and it was the same with the Raptors and a couple of others, but bounty hunting is a strange game of capture the flag. You generally leave the others alone, until one of them picks up the bounty, then it becomes a frenzy to get it at whatever cost.
Asphalt beat at his shoes as he rounded a corner and ducked underneath Zorro’s outstretched gun, hitting it up with one arm. He brought his own up but a swift kick sent it away again, into the gutter. Zorro lunged forward and grabbed his other weapon, his Desert Eagle, and twisted it in his hand until he let go.
The whole thing had happened in four seconds and now Wolf had his own gun pointing at his face, he didn’t bother to raise his hands, he just shook his head and smiled, as if the whole thing was a game.
And in a funny way it was.
The Mexican stood before him, about the same height, maybe an inch taller, and less stocky. He had deep brown eyes, long brown hair, dark skin and was handsome in all respects, or so the ladies told him. Wolf figured that the whole sword thing probably helped get the chicks going.
Zorro returned the grin and spoke.
“Good evening, a fine night for a run I’m sure you’ll agree. I can see the Wolf is slyer than the Sphinx, and a lot less tense. But here’s a somewhat interesting question ‘mano, I have a gun to your head, so why are you smiling?” he asked, his eyes widened and face went still as stone.
“Because you outsmarted me. I was so lost in thinking about the goal, I didn’t see the danger on the way.” Replied Wolf. “ How are you Zorro?”
“Good thank you, and pleased to see you’re in a good mood youself. There is nothing more dangerous than an angry Wolf. I am afraid to say though that I can’t stick around, I have a car to attend to, so this leaves me with another question. Should I knock you out, and hinder your pursuit, or should I kill you, and stop you all together? Of course this is not a question I put to you, but merely one I’m considering.”
Wolf already knew the answer to this, so it did not bother him, he just looked into the Mexicans eyes, behind his small sunglasses, and waited for a chance to get out of his mess.
A choir of sirens started up, singing their songs throughout the night as they went towards the Mansion.
Zorro smiled and said exactly what Wolf expected.
“Well I won’t pretend I’m going to kill you eh? The Wolf can read my eyes, he knows we are both killers, but we respect each other. I have no quarrel with you Wolf. Well, except of course this million-dollar head. But none other than that I’m sure.”
“That’s quite a quarrel in itself amigo. But other than that you are right.” Replied Wolf, as another police car roared up the main road a street away from them, hollering as it did so.
“I like you Wolf, so turn around, and I’ll try not to make this hurt.”
Wolf started to, he was half around when he lashed out with his left foot, hitting the gun away, which discharged as it did so, sending more sirens their way. He then, still pivoting on his right foot, brought his fist round to Zorro’s face, and hit him squarely on the cheek, dropping him like a rock.
Zorro hit the floor and tried to get up, before –Wumph- the back of a pistol came down on the area where the muscles of the neck gather at the top of the spine, where it meets the brain, and he saw black.
Wolf stood above him, he wasn’t going to kill him either, aiming at Zorro’s legs he started to squeeze the trigger.
And stopped.
And thought about it.
After a while, after picking up his guns, replacing Zorro’s in the unconscious man’s jacket pocket so he wasn’t defenceless in a New York alley, and taking the head, minus sword, he muttered something, before he turned and went away.
“I’m getting too soft.”
Wolf had put the head in a small gym-bag, which was usually strapped to the inside of his armour, and walked while swinging it aimlessly, to his car.
He put his thumb on the lock scanner, where the key usually went, and it opened according to his fingerprint. Only two people in the world could open that door, Wolf and his best, and only, friend in the world, his agent, Zack Grey.
He got in and closed the door, the car’s CPU responded to the weight on his seat and as soon as his voice-pattern was recognised, when he said the word “Start”, the part where the radio was usually placed, opened to reveal a computer and a keypad.
The car had a GPS built in, among many other things that these kind of jobs had earned him. The computer screen showed a detailed layout of the city in neon green, a red dot showing his position, and various other smaller screens showing the cars weight, temperature of engine, and a few more useful nuggets of info.
He picked up the bag and opened it, and brought something else from underneath his seat out, a white medical transport box. He put the head in it and typed something into his keyboard. The floor of the passenger’s side opened up, and a storage area was revealed, he threw the box in it, closed it, and threw the emptied and bloodied sports bag out of the window and onto a nearby rubbish heap where he doubted it would be noticed for weeks to come, if ever.
Wolf tapped in the ignition codes and the engines roared, he typed a set course for JFK airport before he heard a shrill screech of tyres and looked up.
A blue Ferrari Enzo, a rare, debatably ugly, but powerful car, roared through the streets with a couple of police cars in hot pursuit.
Wolf gunned the engines and started after them, he knew that Sphinx would shake the police so he wanted him out of the game altogether, besides, the bastard had probably got Welheimers heart in that car, otherwise he would be looking for Wolf regardless of the NYPD.
He sped up and pretty soon was behind the two police cars. He opened a small compartment under his wheel with one arm and reached above the gun rack that he kept there until he found his magnetic police siren, the kind detectives have, and put it on top of his roof, turning it on.
He now was an ally to any suspicious policeman, the obvious upside being that he could use his gun and speed all he wanted.
And boy did he want. He sped right up between the two cop cars and overtook them as he neared the insanely fast Ferrari.
Suddenly a gun appeared at its window and sent a stream of lead into his windscreen. Wolf wasn’t fazed, the windscreen was bullet proof, and the rounds didn’t even leave a scratch. But he didn’t like to see Sphinx so edgy and desperate, probably because of the wound.
They sped up one-way lanes and over sidewalks, Wolf always right behind him so that the police helicopters and the pursuing squad cars never lost their prey thanks to his siren.
The ground beneath their wheels was a blur, and people’s screams when they drove past became streaks of sound, there for a half second before, gone, lost in a twisted concert of roaring engines and high-pitched sirens.
Suddenly, without any warning, the Ferrari sped up and swung 180° so that it was facing its pursuers.
And then it started driving in reverse.
Now, with the Ferrari racing at a suicidal speed backwards and everyone else chasing after catching up quick, Wolf couldn’t shake the feeling that his competitor was really feeling the heat and was about to do something desperate.
And he was right…
Wolf watched the driver’s window wind down, and he swung left with all his might on instinct.
And just in time. With a loud thunk! a grenade flew out of it and into one of the police cars behind it.
Not many people know it, but a Mechem BXP can be fitted with a grenade launcher attachment, usually for anti-riot scenarios, and obviously Sphix had decided that this was a similar occasion.
The squad car was blown to smithereens and flew up into the air while flipping before completing a smash landing on the second police car, which in turn was shattered under the weight. Both cars made a sudden high-speed turn into the brick was of an old abandoned warehouse and smashed through it. Seven seconds later and they had both exploded.
But by this time Wolf and Sphinx were both gone.
Wolf had decided to cut his losses and get to the airport before Sphinx, a race was now on, and he wanted to win it with a passion.
He booked himself in as Mr Alex W. Mancham on the first flight out of New York, and as the checkout girl eyed him suspiciously he smiled and said in his best Texan drawl:
“The wife sure has a temper on her!” he laughed loudly, easing the woman’s concerns, and she told him that if he wanted to make this flight than he had better run because it would depart within the hour.
Wolf smiled and thanked her, went over to the front of the airport, and waited for the call.
He didn’t have to wait long, within the minute his contact had rang him, after already booking him on a flight carrying marines over to Cape Town for some exercise. Wolf would be onboard as a CIA man, so no one would question his presence because, quite frankly, they probably wouldn’t want to know.
Thirty minutes later, while resting his head back against the inside of the huge Hercules C-130 Transport Plane, the nights antics started to creep back up on him. His jaw hurt, and when he checked his flak jacket he found a squashed bullet in the back of it. It had obviously ricocheted and hit him because had it been fired directly he would have probably hit the floor and had the breath knocked out of him. Although, with that in mind the ricochet had left a small purple bruise to the right of his spinal column, and he was sure that it was going to give him all kinds of grief during his next training session.
He was currently sitting in the cargo holds, surrounded by loud, buzz cut Marines, and he’d felt obligate to let them coo at his car which was tied down a metre away, as much as they liked, after all, they had given him a free ride.
“Hey spook? You got any of ‘em James Bond gadgets in this car?” asked a twenty-year old Private while chuckling loudly.
“No, sorry.” He said returning the smile.
“Pity… but it’s a mighty fine setta wheels, ain’t it Jimbo?” he asked his buddy.
‘Jimbo’ was a giant, a 6’10 monster with muscles like a wrestler and a cool look about him, he wasn’t a grunt that people ordered around because he was stupid, he was a soldier respected for his strength, Wolf could see it in his eyes.
Jimbo looked up and nodded, smiling ever so slightly while trying to size up this CIA guy.
“She armoured, spook?” he asked Wolf.
“Yeah, she can stop a shotgun shell at point blank. You could pop a grenade in her bonnet and she’d keep going.” Wolf replied as he leant his head back against his seat again and closed his eyes.
He then opened one and smiled.
“Wanna see?”
The men laughed loudly but shook their heads.
“We aint allowed to use our weapons unless its against an enemy or a cardboard target, and especially in a plane. Marine corps rules.”
The youngest-looking Marine piped in at this point.
“Besides, we don’t wanna have our balls ripped off and hung up by our commander just for a little in-flight entertainment.”
“Hmm,” said Wolf smiling, while standing up and fixing a homemade silencer to his Desert Eagle. “Well I’m not a Marine now, am I?… stand back.”
The Marines all looked to Jimbo, obviously the higher rank, and he smiled and took a few big steps backward. The rest scattered as Wolf ran and jumped onto the bonnet, fired a silenced round into the windscreen, and flew off the car violently when the bullet bounced right off and hit him straight in his own flak jacket.
The Marines ran to help him up as they all whooped and voiced their respect for him, some of them ignored him once they saw he was alive and ran straight to the car windscreen, complaining about their own vehicles armour while they tried to look for a single scratch.
Jimbo pulled Wolf right back onto to his feet and laughed loudly.
“You’re alright, spook. You’re a goddamn crazy motherfucker, but you’re alright.”
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