Page 53 of Double Shot
“You know I can do that,” I growled, staring at the hacked video feed of Malmaison making a few phone calls and removing his tie. The motions were precise, controlled, and I knew that he could be dangerous in a fight. Taking him out quietly would involve a massive amount of stealth and the upper hand.
“After we take him out,” Roan spoke, “I’m going to blow all of this information out so that Interpol and everyone else interested in recovering stolen art and military relics gets these things back where they belong.”
“Good.”
I exercised – push-ups and crunches – burning off the nervous energy, waiting for night to come. Normally I would have had a few drinks, but I wanted to be sharp, not loose. There would be no need to be smooth or for fast talking, just a need for precision, silence, and absolute focus. Kaijin had been sloppy in her defenses, and the only reason I hadn’t blown a ragged hole through her stupid face was her bug-out chopper.
Malmaison was a deviant, paranoid, military fetishist. He had much better guards, much better security.
He was also a pervert. They always were.
“There are no drones now,” Roan warned. “And the only thing you’ll be able to sneak in is a pistol or a knife.”
“That’s more than I need. The place is full of weapons if I need one,” I said.
Close to midnight, I left the rented room and made my way to the gallery on foot. There was almost no traffic, and most people who were up and out would be on the other side of town where the clubs and discotheques were pumping out loud music. I ghosted to the side of the building, staying to shadows, listening while Roan played the spotter, using Malmaison’s own cameras as his eyes.
I reached the main door and heard the electric lock click open and then managed to get the lock on the door to open. If it had been a modern lock, I might have been fucked, but all the physical stuff looked a few decades old. I’m sure he was squeamish about chopping up his old door for a new system.Idiot.
I let myself in and eased the door shut behind me. Paintings lined both sides of the building, and there were a lot of them – golden frames, statues, fancy as shit carpets on the ground. The guns and blades were mounted in wall displays, plaques detailing their gory history. I stopped at one, a softly lit cube display that had all of a British commando’s kit. The plaque mentioned that the blood stains were authentic and from the commando when he was shot to death, giving the time and place. There was a commando dagger and a garrote. I picked up both, one in each pocket, and left the display open.
At the specified time, Sadie dialed Malmaison and got him on the phone. This would keep him distracted while I moved into place. He was up, and as I approached the back of the main hall, I could hear his voice echoing from above. There was a second floor, and a single staircase going up.
I had to ease around his collection of Nazi armor to reach the staircase, and then I took it as quietly as I could. I could hear him laughing and flirting withFrauline Schneider,dropping details about how disappointed he was that her timepiece wasn’t what she thought it was, but that he was assured that everything else about her was real, especially those lovely breasts.
For a moment I entertained the fantasy of tapping him on the shoulder, him turning around to face me, an action movie one-liner, a quip, then a nose breaking punch to the face, some hand-to-hand, then the slow Hollywood knife stab down into his chest while he kept looking from my eyes to the knife, back and forth, as the blade penetrated his flesh, slowly, like a lover.
Hollywood fantasies.
I looped the garrote around his neck, twisted the ends together and turned. The wire was wrapped around his throat and with sheer force, I lifted him off of the ground, our backs pressed together. His phone clattered to the ground, the screen shattering, and he thrashed and kicked, but his heels couldn’t connect with any meaningful purpose or force.
“Your collection is going back to who it belongs too,” I grunted. He gurgled and thrashed. “And this is for blowing up my house in Indigo City, you fucking asshole.” He must have realized something about who I was, or who I was with, because he threw a few desperate elbows, and thrashed harder. I could feel the handles biting into my own hands and could imagine what the wire was doing to his throat.
“My brothers, in the US Army,” I jerked against his struggle, keeping him away from a wall or anything he could get purchase on with his feet, “killed Nazis with guns.” He managed to score a hit with his elbow, made my vision swim for a moment, but I didn’t lose my grip. “You don’t deserve the mercy of a bullet.”
There was a horrible sucking noise, wet and bubbly, and then he stopped struggling.
I dropped his dead weight and staggered at the sudden lightness. He stared at the ceiling of his apartment, his throat a bloody ruin, windpipe torn open and exposed, and a tremendous amount of blood. The wire must have gouged one of his arteries.
I removed the commando’s knife and inspected the blade. The craftsmanship was perfect. I put the point just to the side of his breastbone and hammered the knife home, putting British steel into his heart, just to make sure. “I don’t know who carried you,” I said, looking at the knife. “But you can rest easy now, soldier. One less motherfucker in this world, and your knife made sure he was fucking dead.”
I left the gallery. I was vaguely aware of Roan talking in my ear, and after a few blocks, I tucked the earpiece in my pocket. I didn’t need instructions; I just needed a little bit of quiet.
I felt a level of calm that bordered on Zen, that felt like the edge of enlightenment.
The air tasted different; the smells seemed sharper.
It was almost a transcendent level of inner peace.
Chapter Twelve
Sadie…
I hated the accommodations. The German bed-and-breakfast didn’t really have a bed big enough for the three of us. What they had were these weird beds that were more like two mattresses put together, so if I wasn’t sleeping draped over one of my men, I got lost in the crack of the mattresses in between them and woke up pressed to the wood platform that supported them.
The bathroom was nice at least. It boasted a large glassed-in shower and a corner tub.
It was about the only thing nice about the room, though. There was no kitchenette, no real table, just a small corner desk and a couch at the foot of the bed to sit on. It was very utilitarian but then again, I was beginning to get the impression that was how the German people were. Frank, to the point, and utilitarian – but not unkind. Just… I don’t know… abrupt.
