Vulcan Eye Page 7

  “Is that right?”

  “Of course that’s right or I wouldn’t have said it. Wake up out of your fog, Hood. I’m coming for you. You’re next.”

  “Really, Brandt? Getting a little cocky, aren’t you? Maybe it didn’t occur to you that I have no shortage of professional killers.

  Chuck put away the walkie-talkie. He was just glad that Angela was safe back at the boat.

  CHAPTER 16

  In the heart of Varosha, in the back room of the old store, Angela clung to the door handle with shaking fingers. Slowly—slowly—millimeter by millimeter, she pushed the door open. The hinges were as silent as graves. They did not creak or squeak. They did not break the hideous silence. After two inches, she stopped opening the door and looked down at the drop of blood on the floor. Darkness crept over her like a hot, toxic cloud. The memory of tortures she suffered from the Hood poured into her brain. She broke out in a sweat. Lamentations shuttered up and down her spine.

  Her fingers locked around the door handle. She could not let go; neither could she continue to open that door. She felt like a corpse with rigor mortis. She knew that the Hood himself might be in there, eagerly waiting for her. Mournful thoughts flooded her brain: she should never have gone out alone that night to meet Sebastian. It was reckless. If she could do it all over again, she would have refused to leave her apartment. She would have rebuked him for his reckless actions—and she would have stayed home where it was safe.

  But she had not.

  Against her better judgment, she had gone to Sebastian. He had already attracted the wolves, and her nightmare began. The darkness, the horror, the shame, the degradation, the pain, the utter hopelessness and despair—why had she ever gone to meet Sebastian while he was out of control? Chaos had been his best friend. Mayhem was his true love. His anger and rage had been on full display, but even the mighty Sebastian could not overcome that pack of armed jackals.

  Her fingers clung to that door handle, but they did not move. They no longer trembled. They were utterly still. They were like the frozen fingers of an explorer encased in ice. They were like the fingers of a dead man in a lost ravine where predators prowled and screams were silenced by isolation.

  In her mind, she experienced flashes of the hidden torture all over again. She heard the screams trapped in her head. They were like the screams of a stranger, but they were her own.

  The agonies of abandonment played at her haunted memories. The thoughts played back like confessions—the anger against any and all who would not come to her rescue.

  But she had risen above the darkness and learned to shine like a light—even in the midst of the dark valley and all its terrors. She had learned to accept the inevitability of death and yet heard the quiet whispers of assurance that the Hood could do no more than kill her body. In faith the greater victory would carry her through the dark valley into to arms of hope and love. Her soul was a candle in a dark cave, a sword gleaming and flashing in the unseen world of unseen battles.

  Her hand moved. The door moved an inch on its hinges. The darkness spread in the gap.

  CHAPTER 17

  One hour, fifty-five minutes till shoot-down

  Chuck looked back around the corner of a building and didn’t like what he saw. The approaching danger was a twelve-man team. The first man was unarmed. They walked in a single-file line, each man separated from the others by three-to-five yards. They slowly threaded a trail down a paved street that was half overtaken by weeds and grass. They were walking between a run-down, Spanish-villa-style hotel with sagging roofs and a conference center across the street—the conference center with its cracked stucco, overgrown gardens, and trash accumulated in the entryway from years of wind patterns.

  Chuck led Demetrius down a side street which led them away from their target but also away from the approaching killers. They jogged two blocks, turned left, went another block, then turned right.

  After another block, Chuck stopped Demetrius and said, “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Why? They didn’t see us, and they’re on a different street.”

  “They don’t have to see us. I think the fifth man was a tracker.”

  “We got lucky last time.”

  “I wouldn’t count on luck. There’s a lot of junk around here. I have an idea.”

  “You better or I’ll never live to find my father’s house.”

  “You mean what’s in his house.”

  “That’s right. It’ll be a miracle if I live to see it.”

  “What about your story of the two spies and the good report?”

  “I said it would be a miracle. I didn’t say impossible.”

  “Good. Then quit talking and help me.”

  They entered an apartment and carried out a clothes-dryer machine.

  Chuck removed a coil of rope from his knapsack. Working quickly, he tied the end around the base of a lamp post, the bottom of which was overgrown with tall grass. Careful not to step on the foliage, he rigged the rope across the road where the ground was covered with more dead grass, down a weed-choked gutter, and through a metal arch meant for locking up a bicycle in front of the apartment building. He tossed the coil over second-floor balcony and used the end of a rope to raise the old clothes-dryer machine. Then he looped a small section of the rope around a fire hydrant—just a few loops around a side nozzle of the hydrant so the rope could be pulled free.

  Chuck told him the plan. Then he said, “Remember, when they go past that old barrel, let the rope go. Pull it free of the hydrant.”

  Chuck took up a shooting position and waited. After just a few minutes, the death team came into view. He waited patiently until they stalked into the danger zone. He immediately knew that Demetrius had yanked the rope free of the fire hydrant, allowing the clothes dryer to fall because the rope whipped across the ground at knee level with the speed of a bow and arrow. It cut their legs out from beneath them with devastating force and left twelve men seriously wounded and dazed on the ground. The street looked like a war zone. Not one of them held onto his assault rifle when the rope cut them down. Chuck was just thankful that the rope stayed low so nobody was decapitated.

  He ran out the street and picked up their guns. One killer had the presence of mind to draw his pistol and try to take a shot at him, but Chuck answered with a direct hit in his right shoulder, and followed up by kicking his useless hand. The gun landed in the weeds.

  One after another, Chuck and Demetrius dragged the wounded killers into a garage next to the apartment building and locked them down in an oil-changing pit in the basement. They rolled an old car over the metal floor hatch so they could not get out.

  Chuck looked down into the makeshift dungeon and made eye contact with the bleeding assassin whose shoulder Chuck had shot. “If I get out of here alive, I’ll call for a doctor.”

  A look of defeat and devastation overcame the killer’s face. All hope drained away. He sagged back against the wall and began to weep. He obviously didn’t expect Chuck to survive.

  Heads Up: Thank you for reading this far! The next book in the series, SHADOW LAWYER, is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy today. Now back to VULCAN EYE.

  CHAPTER 18

  Clinging to the door handle in the back of the trashed-out store, clinging with rigid fingers and a shaft of cold blood running down her spine, Angela pressed the door open centimeter by centimeter. The darkness opened up on her like a specter of abandonment and regret.

  The door fell back and a wave of hot air and wretched smell rolled out into the hallway of the abandoned store. When Angela saw the sight, a primal yelp escaped her lips. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to faint. She wanted to cry. She wanted to run.

  But she did none of that.

  She forced herself to stay calm, to walk slowly. Then, next thing she knew, she was running. She sprinted across the street faster than a swallow and took cover inside a hotel. She dropped down to her knees and retched.

  After a couple of
minutes, gasping for air, she walked onward through the hotel terrified of hidden horrors or worse—the Hood himself. Yes, he had been here. That evil scene had been his handiwork.

  She blocked the images out of her brain.

  Flashbacks assaulted her from all directions. She kept moving her head left and right, focusing on the sights all around her so that they distracted her from the images that sought to assault her mind.

  She walked past a grand dining room with a long table that stretched long enough to sit twenty-five chairs on either side. The table had been set long ago, but the guests never arrived for the expected banquet. Dust covered the fine china. The chairs were still neatly arranged in neat lines down both sides. Who was the guest of honor, she wondered, the guest who never got to enjoy what would surely have been a wonderful night?

  Angela focused entirely on such details, for as long as she focused on those, the attacks of fear would be kept at bay.

  Oh, the horror of it!

  She passed a lounge with old cushioned chairs and wondered who had spent time there. What fascinating people had come and gone during the heyday of Varosha? If only she could have met some of them—and told them to get out of this terrible hotel.

  No! She fought to hold back the darkness. There was a time of happiness here—long before the Hood ever arrived here. This had been a place of happiness, a place where parents brought their children to build sandcastles on the beach. Fine restaurants had been places of laughter. The tables hosted joyful reunions.

  Wonderful, fascinating people had come here. They had laughed and told stories and played games in this lounge and many others. If only she could meet the good people of Varosha’s bright past.

  Before the jackals moved in!

  Clinging to the pistol Lawrence had given her along with the boat, Angela walked cautiously through the lobby. It was an old fashioned hotel with nooks behind the front desk where keys were kept. The thick dust on the front desk looked undisturbed for years. She saw footprints on the floor, but not many. She didn’t get the impression that this was the Hood’s hideout. If it was, it would show more sign of recent activity.

  She walked past a cushioned settee. The material had been chewed up by mice or rats, which appeared to be living in the cushion based on the holes. A chandelier still hung from the ceiling, but it looked as if it could fall at any time.

  Four forty-foot high Greek columns seemed to hold up the decorative ceiling. Identical columns lined all four sides of the lobby. It almost seemed a shame that such a palatial hotel had sat vacant for decades. What a waste. And now a horrific place. And why? Because killers like the Hood cared nothing for civilized society. They preferred to live like unholy savages—no, like demons.

  She heard a noise on the upper level.

  Holding out her gun, she aimed it at the upper hallway behind the Greek colums, the second floor hallway that wound around the open lobby like string around a yo-yo. She put the thought out of her mind. It reminded her somehow of when the Hood had choked her—the several times he had choked her until she passed out. Those were the kindest things he had done. What a pathetic excuse for a man, she thought. An embarrassment to the idea of manhood.

  She left the hotel but heard voices. Men were approaching.

  She turned. Two blocks down, she saw several men.

  And they saw her.

  CHAPTER 19

  Angela ran into the Far East Hotel. In contrast to the rest of Varosha, the beachfront hotels were high-rises. At ten stories, the Far East was one of the tallest. It looked like she now felt, like the visitors of 1974 went into full panic and rioted. Chairs were knocked over. The glass separating the lobby from the restaurant was shattered across the floor. Then she saw a wall riddled with bullet holes, and she realized that the tourists of the seventies were not to blame. Scavengers and vandals were to blame—the disgusting killers who worked for the Hood—and who were coming for her now.

  Her feet thudded over a soiled Persian carpet. She ran past a pile of junk which had once been a chandelier. She sprinted between two eight-foot high, blue-and-pink Chinese vases.

  She ran up the stairs past a tilted painting of the Dali Llama. At the top of the stairs, her feet thudded over a fallen painting, faced down. She came to a long hall of many rooms. She knew that it would take them a while to search all the rooms, but they would eventually find her. Her eyes focused on the white marble Buddha sitting between two more giant vases.

  Angela squeezed between the Buddha and a giant vase, then laid down behind the giant statue. In less than a minute, the she heard the men run past. Sure enough, the next thing she heard was the opening of doors. She peeked up. The hall was empty. They were searching the rooms and closets. She waited until they emerged from two rooms and entered two more rooms. Then she made her move.

  She climbed out from behind the Buddha and quietly descended the stairs. She stepped out into the back alley and froze.

  Vulcan Eye!

  The laser weapon looked like a massive tracked crawler, an oversized tank, but instead of a gun barrel it had a hydraulic multi-channel radar dish and a tractable weapons rack with two dozen compact lasers, each looking like a stocky, mounted telescope.

  Vulcan Eye was parked up on the flatbed of a semi truck.

  Angela figured it would take those thugs another fifteen minutes to search the hotel’s ten floors—or longer.

  This was her chance!

  She climbed up on the flatbed and opened a little metal door on the side of the tracked vehicle. She pushed a button which ignited the weapon’s computer system.

  She took her flash drive necklace off and pushed the memory device into the port. Then a voice made her freeze to the marrow of her bones.

  “Angela!”

  She turned slowly as if she feared a fast movement would cause a snake to bite.

  It was the Hood!

  Aiming his rifle at her.

  CHAPTER 20

  One hour, twenty-five minutes till shoot-down

  Chuck and Demetrius had barely gone a block when they walked into an ambush. Fortunately, the kill zone was poorly chosen with two abandoned cars nearby. Like hunted rabbits, they dove for cover behind the old classics. Bullets riddled the cars from three sides. Chuck and Demetrius were pinned down by ten shooters with no escape in sight.

  “We’re dead,” Demetrius said.

  “Not quite yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you’re in the wrong place, sometimes you gotta hit the road.”

  “We’re surrounded on three sides with a cement wall behind us.”

  “It’s about time. Now we know where the bastards are. We can finally take care of business.”

  “Are you insane? We’re dead men.”

  “I’m lying on a sewer grate. We’re going underground. Then we’ll hit those five shooters over in the restaurant from behind. We’ll give them a nasty surprise.”

  “Good luck. You’ll never get that cover off.”

  As bullets riddled the cars, Chuck took off his knapsack. He removed his fourteen-inch crowbar. “Never leave home without it.”

  He pried up the lid, and sewer gasses that had been trapped for decades escaped through the opening.

  Demetrius started gagging. “I’m not going down there.”

  “Suit yourself. Stay here and harass them as a distraction.”

  Bullets riddled the car they hid behind.

  “Never mind. I’m with you.”

  “We have to move fast or they might get suspicious.” Chuck handed Demetrius an extra t-shirt from his knapsack. “Wrap that around your mouth and nose. Don’t breath any unfiltered air.” Chuck tied on his red bandana, covering his face beneath his eyes.

  Chuck switched on the flashlight from his knapsack and descended into the darkness.

  Fortunately, a walkway ran along the edge above the sewer canal, which consisted of a cement-walled ditch, the bottom of which was covered with a thick layer of dried up and co
mposted waste.

  They ran a block and climbed a ladder. Chuck muscled up a manhole cover and they emerged in front of a hotel on the next street over.

  “We have to hurry,” Chuck said, “or they’ll realize what’s going on.”

  They skulked through the hotel lobby and spotted several shooters in the hotel restaurant, blasting away through broken out windows.

  One of the shooters stood and aimed an RPG at the classic car that Chuck had just been hiding behind. When he fired a rocket, the car exploded. Fragments hit the building. Debris rained down on the street. Black smoke poured out of the broken windows. The men got up. They shook their fists, cheered, and fired shots at the burning funeral pyre.

  Chuck pulled the pin from one of the grenades in the tactical vest he’d taken off the two killers when he first met Demetrius. He lobbed the grenade and ducked down. It arrived like an uninvited crasher at a party. Just when the Hood’s assassins thought they’d killed their prey, just as they cheered over their kill, just then the grenade bounced at their feet. Shock hit them a moment before the explosion.

  Despite the carnage, a couple of the Hood’s men were still in good enough condition to shoot in Chuck’s direction.

  From behind a marble column, Demetrius opened fire as shooters crawled for cover. Others returned fire. The gunfight played out for less than a minute.

  “Let’s go,” Chuck said.

  They ran for the back of the hotel, but Chuck stopped Demetrius before he burst through the doorway.

  “I’ll kick open the door and cover the right. You cover the left. They’ve had time to send someone around in case we try to flee.” Chuck kicked open the door and stepped to the side. Sure enough, a gunman had his back to the wall just beyond where the door hit the wall. The shooter was waiting for Chuck and Demetrius to run out into the street where he would shoot them in the back. Chuck had the angle on him and squeezed off a silence shot. The slug tore through the assassin’s knee.