Enforcer (51 page)

“I don’t want to die,” Jera sobbed, looking up at Connor.

Five guns were pointed at them, along with Ojacarcu’s smirk.

“Please, Connor. Please!” Jera begged him, wrapping her other arm around his legs.

“Let go,” Connor commanded, his voice dead and cold as a tomb.

“I love you!” she screamed at him. “Please!”

“Let go,” Connor commanded again.

Jera’s tears turned silent as she let go of his leg and got to her feet. Connor looked from her face down to where her hand still gripped his until she let go. She wrapped her arms around herself, her chest a misfiring pump as it hitched up and down in spasms. Connor stared at her, waiting for her to stop crying. He looked out at the six Romanians watching the drama, waiting for him to become one of them or become another corpse to dispose of.

Connor reached around to the back of Jera’s head, grabbing a handful of hair and pulling it back to expose her neck. She almost collapsed, but her knees and Connor’s grip held her up. Her face was frozen in terror, eyes wet but no longer spilling tears down her cheek.

“I love you,” Connor whispered to her as he raised the knife.

He swung his arm down, flipping the knife blade against his forearm at the last second, his fist slamming into Jera’s chest and shoving her down with heavy force. Connor started to pivot on his feet even before his fist struck her, sending her flying to the dirt. The world narrowed into a black tunnel as he made a beeline straight toward Ojacarcu. The explosions of the pistols made his guts both tighten and loosen at the same time, but he only saw Ojacarcu. Connor knew he would never make it the twenty feet that separated the older man from him before a bullet tumbled him to the dirt, but he’d already made his mind up that he and Jera wouldn’t set foot beyond the half-finished building alive.

*

Petre watched Connor flip the knife around and smash it into the girl’s chest. Without taking his eyes off Connor, barely moving his arm, he pointed his gun at Dracul and pulled the trigger three times. The noise of his gun was joined by the sound of four others, all but Petre trying to ventilate Connor before he reached their boss. Dracul dropped to his knees, a look of surprise and hate on his face. One hand reached to his side, feeling a hole in his jacket along with wetness. The other raised his gun, firing several shots at Petre. Petre scrambled backwards, emptying the rest of his magazine at Dracul.

*

The boom of the guns drowned out the sound of Connor’s scream of rage as his feet churned through the dirt, his legs pistoning harder than they had since before the accident, the adrenaline blocking all pain, all fatigue, all of the fear. Ojacarcu was his only goal. Ojacarcu, who had been too surprised to do anything but stare at Connor racing toward him, finally realized that none of the bullets had hit Connor, and turned to run toward the car. Connor slammed into the Romanian’s back knife-first, his free arm wrapping around the man’s throat while he pulled the knife free and brought it around to stab repeatedly at Ojacarcu’s chest. They tumbled to the ground, a whirling mess of blood and screams. Connor brought the knife down over and over, perforating his boss’ chest, his roar of fury drowning out the dissipating gunfire.

*

Petre felt the pain in his stomach flare hot, then his whole body turned cold as the shock hit him. He staggered and fell to his knees. A bullet shattered the passenger window of the Lincoln where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier. He leaned against the big car’s door, his gun still pointed at Dracul, the hammer falling on empty air. Petre panicked for a few seconds, one of the few times in his life that he’d allowed himself to succumb to such a thing, as he watched Dracul stand up and walk toward him, two new stains spreading across the man’s chest.

He remembered the extra magazines in his inner pocket and pulled both out, dropping one into the dirt. He thumbed the release and ejected the empty clip. He rammed the new one home as Dracul fired, the bullet becoming a second volcano of fire in his guts. Dracul walked steadily forward, a devil’s grin on his face as he lined up another shot, aiming for Petre’s head. Petre chambered a round and fired at the oncoming man, missing him, but disrupting Dracul’s aim enough to hit Petre in the shoulder instead of the middle of his face.

Petre raised his automatic one last time, nearly paralyzed by the sudden rush of fear coursing through him at the knowledge that Dracul was unstoppable, that the demon wouldn’t miss the next time he pulled the trigger. Petre fired, emptying all fourteen rounds in less than three seconds. He waited for the final blow, the kill shot to come. Dracul jerked, the smile on his face growing wide. His finger squeezed the trigger once, the bullet digging into the dirt near his feet. The demon collapsed face-first into the hard dirt floor, a fist-sized hole above his right ear.

Petre’s thumb unconsciously ejected the empty magazine and inserted the spare he’d dropped a few seconds earlier. He struggled to his feet, swayed for a second, then fell to his knees again. He made his way around the luxury car on hands and knees, peering underneath to find his next target’s feet.

*

Connor continued to scream with each thrust of the knife until he heard Petre’s shout cut through his madness.

“Connor! Move! You must move! Now!” Petre yelled at him from the other side of one of the cars.

Dirt kicked up near his head, immediately followed by another boom and the sound of a bullet striking the sheet metal of the unfinished building. Connor let go of the knife and the body and ran bent over toward where he thought Petre was. He rounded the front end of the closest car, thinking he’d found Petre. Instead, a crouching Pavel pointed a silver automatic at him and pulled the trigger. Connor’s bicep flared in pain, then his hip when he crashed into the Lincoln’s side mirror. Pavel’s second shot went wide. The Romanian lined up the pistol on Connor’s chest, his toothy smile full of triumph, until Petre crept around behind the man and shot him in the back of the head. Pavel pulled the trigger a third time as he died, the bullet digging into his own leg.

Connor stood upright, holding his arm, hot, sticky blood seeping between his fingers, unable to process that he was still alive. Petre grunted and kicked out Connor’s legs just as another round of gunfire erupted. The Lincoln’s remaining windows shattered, and the tire closest to him blew out. Petre crawled to Connor, pulled his hand back from his wound, and made a chuffing sound. He gave Connor a strange look before poking his head up over the hood of the big luxury car. A shot rang out, forcing Petre duck down in a hurry.

“Vadim!” Petre shouted. “Oprește focul!”
Stop firing!

Silence settled over them. Petre looked at Connor again and gestured at him to stay put. He held up two fingers to indicate there were at least two gunmen left, but Connor was too dazed to understand what it meant. He looked around the front of the car to see if Jera had stayed down, but was unable to see anything before another shot blew out the Lincoln’s headlight inches from his head. Petre slapped him on the leg, gesturing again to stay put behind the car.

“Vadim!” Petre shouted again. “Asta este o prostie! Nu mai trage in noi!”
This is foolish! Do not fire at us!

“You will burn for this, Petre!” Ovidiu screamed at him in Romanian from somewhere to their left. “They will hurt you for months! Years! Everyone you know will be tortured in front of your eyes!”

“Everyone I know is dead,” Petre called out in English, scooting along the way he had come to retrieve Pavel’s gun.

He checked the magazine, then used one hand to pull another from Pavel’s inside pocket. Petre crawled back to Connor, dumping the silver automatic into Connor’s lap along with the extra magazine.

“Put the new clip in,” Petre commanded him in a whisper. He called out over the hood to the others, “It is over Ovidiu. Mr. Ojacarcu is dead! Dracul is dead! Pavel is dead! Let it end!”

“Go to hell!” Ovidiu screamed.

“When I give you the signal, put just the gun over the hood and pull the trigger until there are no more bullets,” Petre whispered to Connor again. “Space them out in two second shots after pulling the trigger as fast as you can four times. You will have eleven more bullets. Got it?”

“Yes,” Connor said, fumbling with the gun, his right arm beginning to burn to go along with the ache that made it feel like he was lugging around a fifty pound lead pipe.

“Remember!” Petre commanded. “Four shots as fast as you can, then the rest every two seconds. When you run out, load the other clip but do not fire.”

“Why not?” Connor asked, his brain still trying to make sense of everything.

“Because you will need it if I am killed. Do not make any noise except to shoot. Do not call out for her.”

Petre got his feet under him and duck-walked to the rear end of the Lincoln, peering his head around for a second to get a good look.

“Vadim! Ovidiu! Enough! Put down your weapons. There is enough death for today.”

Petre looked back at Connor, waiting until one of the Romanians started to yell something and gave Connor a thumbs-up signal. Connor reached his hand above the hood, pointing the gun blindly, and began to pull the trigger. The pistol jumped in his hand because of the awkward angle, causing him to fire off five quick shots instead of four. He turned to better brace his arm without exposing his body, firing a shot every two seconds. His brain cleared just enough that he remembered to count it out
one-two-six, one-two-seven, one-two-eight
, to keep track of how many rounds he had left.

A burst of gunfire came just as he fired off his last two rounds, a scream echoing along the sheet metal of the building and around the hood of the Lincoln. Another shot silenced the scream. Connor’s hands fumbled again with the gun, his fear that the remaining Romanian would come around either end of the car he was behind at any moment. It took him three tries to get the magazine into the gun, and two tries before he was able to get the slide to move forward and accept a fresh round.

“Vadim!” Petre’s shout sounded close but muffled, off to his left. “Ovidiu is dead!”

“Why, Petre?” Vadim’s shout came from Connor’s right. “Why would you do this?”

Connor pointed the gun in the direction of Vadim’s voice.

“This time is over for us,” Petre yelled. “There is no more Ojacarcu. There is no more career for us.”

“You have ruined everything!”

“You should not look at it that way,” Petre called out with a short bark of laughter.

“They will come for us, Petre. They will kill us, just like Ovidiu said. We’ve killed
the
boss
. You’ve killed the boss. And Dracul!”

“Then I have ruined nothing.” Petre’s voice rebounded from a different location.

Connor didn’t look around to see where Petre might be, afraid the instant he did, Vadim would appear like an apparition and kill him. His worry grew that he couldn’t hear Jera. He hoped she was smart enough to know to hide where she could, to keep quiet until it was over.

“Vadim, Gandește-te la asta.”
Think of this
. Petre’s voice was somehow now behind Connor. “Dracul was the only one we had reason to fear. He is dead. Mr. Ojacarcu is dead. Everyone but us. None of us will say what happened. We will disappear into new lives. There will be no one to come and clean this mess up. The drug agents, they will hear of this and will call the news. Our brothers here and back home will know it is too much trouble to become involved in.”

“Nu te cred!”
I don’t believe you!
Vadim’s shout sounded closer to Connor.

“You must, Vadim. Think about it! It will not be the first operation the families have abandoned because of the attention by police. You know the drug agents have been prying into our lives. You know they visited Connor, trying to get him to turn. When they look into Mr. Ojacarcu’s affairs, they will see enough to keep them busy for a long time, trying to trace it back to home. They will go undercover and compromise our friends in other cities. The families will not think of us if we do not give them reason to.”

“Unde vom merge?” Vadim asked, closer to Connor again. “Cum vom trăi?”
How will we live? Where will we go?

“We will be Connor’s personal trainers,” Petre said, laughing. “We will of course have to retrieve his new contract and pretend it never existed.”

“Connor, is this true?” Vadim asked with a shout, not sure where Connor was hiding, or if his young friend was even still alive.

Connor almost yelled out that of course it was true. Petre beat him to it.

“He will not answer you, Vadim. He is scared of you. You have a gun, and you have been shooting at him.”

“I… Connor…” Vadim’s voice hesitated. “I will not shoot you.”

“Vadim, you must step into the open and put your gun away. It is the only way. If you do not, he will kill you. He has Pavel’s gun.”

Connor tensed, waiting in the silence as Vadim decided what to do. He heard a scrape just ahead of him, seeing dusty dress shoes from under the car. He let out a breath and relaxed his finger a bit after having almost squeezed it at the sound.

“You are right,” Vadim said. “We will disappear and become Connor’s helpers.”