The Hitman: Dirty Rotters (28 page)

Frank yelled, “Get on the
train!”

I turned back and saw Frank fighting
hard. He was about twenty yards away, on his back with two Russians
on him, whaling away. I hesitated. He yelled at me again. I could
hear the train a few yards away picking up speed. Frank was
screaming at me.

“
Get on the
train!”

Out of the darkness two more figures
appeared, piling down upon Frank. I recognized one of them as the
guy holding the envelope filled with cash. I lost Frank in the mess
of flailing limbs. I started towards him when I saw the flash of
light and heard the boom from his cannon. Frank emerged, tossing
off him the dead Russians. One shot. Four dead. Frank was furious.
He was yelling at the dead, praising his gun, and urging me to
catch the train before it was too late.

So I did.

I turned from him and ran. The nose of
the train was driving past the stationary train beside me. I saw
boxcars in motion, then a flat bed. I ran hard in the loose gravel,
but it felt impossible. More and more cars were passing as the
train was picking up speed.

I looked back for Frank then. He
wasn’t much farther along than where I had left him, fighting two
more men. Russians, I guessed, by their kicking attacks. Frank was
getting beat.

“
Frank!”

Then Frank went down, lost in a pile
of thrashing limbs and shadowy movements. I started to run back to
him, when he screamed to me. “Get to the train! The train!” Then
Frank was back on his feet, fighting for his life.

The train was picking up speed now. If
we didn’t get on it now, we wouldn’t be able to. I stopped where I
was and did nothing. I could see Frank fighting three big figures,
his hands were full. And then there was the train, slipping away. I
had a hard time leaving Frank to fend for himself. Indecision was
costing me precious seconds.

“
The train! Go! Do it!”
Frank pleaded. He fought hard. I saw the other figures punching and
kicking him, and just as quick as he sent one sprawling to the
gravel, another was up and going in for the kill. “Save Sally! Do
it! Do it for me!”

Left alone, Frank could die. The train
leaves and Sally and Palo would be as good as dead. Frank was
right. The train. I had to go. I turned my back on a guy in need
and ran my legs as hard and fast as they could go. I felt guilty
right away. But I didn’t look back. The train was picking up speed
and I was losing ground fast.

I cleared the stationary train and
then had a clear view of the train I was pursuing. About a dozen
railcars were ahead of me pulling away and four were left, steadily
passing me. I knew right away that I had no chance at the third or
fourth car. I cut sharp to the left and angled my sprint, hoping to
catch the second to last car at about ten yards ahead. It was like
a quarterback throwing a touchdown pass, leading the receiver. It
was about precision. I ran like hell and breathed in the cool night
air until my lungs ached and I thought I would vomit.

The rocks were sloppy and my feet sank
with every step. It wasn’t easy. And I wasn’t fast to begin with.
The car I had planned on intercepting was moving out of range. The
further away from the station, the less their lights shined and the
more the night consumed. I saw ladders at the front and ends of the
cars rung up to the tops, right above the set of steel wheels and
the graffiti. I angled to the left and grabbed a handle on the
ladder of the last car. I had to speed up my pace, then make the
jump, planting both hands on the ladder and stepping onto the
bottom rung inches away from the wheels.

I was sweating hard all over. I looked
back and saw a blur of bodies in motion.

Frank!

Suddenly a shot fired. It was loud and
it scared me. I saw the muzzle blast bright in the darkness. I
figured the worst—Frank was outnumbered and they shot him. I was
wrong. Three more shots followed, small bursts of light in the
night. Bodies fell into the mist. Then the lone figure broke into a
sprint, heading for the train fleeing the stations. I knew it was
Frank. He was coming for his woman. I pictured his face to be a
mask of determination and anger, sweat and blood. He wouldn’t give
up. I understood. I held on tight and watched his dark form slowly
fade back into the night. He was too late.

The train was really moving now. The
wind was blowing in my face and it was cold. It dried my sweat
within seconds.

I climbed up the ladder onto the top
of the single door boxcar. I stared forward, into the cold wind. My
eyes watered. I squinted. The train stretched out in front of me
like a black anaconda. Somewhere in its belly was a
vermin.

Time to go.

Vladimir was waiting.

Chapter 23

My plan was foolish at
best.

I ran across the tops of single door
boxcars, jumped from one to the other, on and across the line of
tankers and empty flatbeds, and kept moving, too determined to
allow fear to linger. I held on tight when I needed to and ran fast
when I could. I was going to the nose of the train. I was going to
stop it and take it over.

After a mile, it slowed on its
own.

It came to a stop finally as I sat
perched at the front edge of a boxcar, listening and looking. We
were in the middle of nowhere. Trees and fields surrounded us like
black ink blotches. The air had grown cooler. My nose was runny and
my eyes were watery. My sweatshirt was wet with sweat. I pulled the
hood down from over my head and listened hard. I heard nothing. No
movements. No rusty doors opening cautiously. No voices barking
orders. I had assumed that a warning call was made to the train
conductor from someone back in the yard. I looked back, wondering
how far Frank had made it, but the trees, rails, and dirt all
blurred into the darkness and I made nothing out past the end of
the train.

I had to do something. So I kept
going.

Five cars from the nose, I heard a
clanking sound behind me. I turned to see four men in a line
scrambling up a tanker three cars back. They held long objects,
pipes probably. I moved faster to the front of the car and used the
ladder to get to the ground. I looked both ways and saw no one. I
had no gun, no weapon of any kind.

So I hid.

I crawled back into the shadows
between the two cars and waited. Voices approached quickly.
Russians. I heard them jump down onto the gravel beside the tracks.
They were moving slowly, carefully checking for an
intruder.

I took a deep breath of cool air in
through my mouth and held it. The first man came into view on my
right, quickly followed by the second. One carried a long, heavy
wrench, the other a giant hammer. I exhaled slowly as they crept
passed me.

Then I heard sloppy footsteps in the
gravel to my left. I figured they had split up, two on each side of
me. A logical, tactical maneuver.

I crawled out of the shadows as the
two on the right were about five yards away. My plan was to sneak
up on one and take him out, then get the one ahead of him. I would
have a minute or so before the two men on the other side of the
train could get to me.

For a man who didn’t always make the
right decision, it was a good plan.

Almost.

Because I had made a mistake. The men
were not as logical or tactical as I thought.

I had stepped out ahead of the third
man. He screamed for help right away. His mistake. As he heaved up
a massive wrench to strike me, I sent a hard kick to his chest with
my right foot. But I was on loose gravel and my left foot slid, and
my adrenaline was pumping so hard that I missed my target and sent
my heel into his larynx. He toppled over, grabbing at his smashed
windpipe. I grabbed his weapon and hurled it into the night towards
his two partners that were running straight for me. The wrench must
have weighed twenty pounds. It must have been invisible in the
night. The first guy heading my way caught it in the face. It
sounded like a full head of lettuce being shot by a cannon ball. I
imagined his face was crushed. His screams were probably heard five
miles away. He went down trashing like a fish out of
water.

I ran.

I moved as fast as I could towards the
other Russian, who paused a moment in fear to stare at his fallen
comrade. I dove into him like a defensive lineman and sent my right
shoulder into his chest, wrapped my arms around his neck, and sent
him to the dirt and stones. He scrambled around, but I held tight.
He kicked back into my legs, but I squeezed tighter. Elbows into my
stomach, but I didn’t budge. He turned and tried to bite my left
forearm. But he didn’t have a chance. I didn’t come to play. I came
to end the game.

Within a few moments his struggling
quit. He went limp. I relaxed my grip. He began mumbling that he
was seeing the white light. He probably thought he was seeing the
afterlife. Maybe a passage leading into Heaven, as most people
think they see. But I knew he was suffering a lack of oxygen to his
brain. His peripheral vision had gone out and his eyes were open,
drawing in light, but his brain wasn’t making sense of it. He
thought he was dying and going to Heaven.

He had the dying part
right.

I tossed his motionless body off me
then searched it for a gun. I found nothing. The other Russian was
ducking through between railcars beside me, yelling all the way.
The element of surprise obviously didn’t mean much to him. I laid
down and went still. He made it through to my side of the train and
saw us three lying on the ground. I wish I could have seen his
face. But it was dark and I only kept my eyes opened a sliver, just
enough to trace his movements. In his right hand was a huge hammer.
He set it in the dirt beside me when he knelt down to investigate
his friends’ bodies. He was whispering, praying maybe.

He didn’t see my hand snatch the
hammer.

He sure as hell felt it when I slammed
the pick end into his left boot, slicing through the black leather,
cracking metatarsals and searing cuneonavicular ligaments. He fell
immediately. Anyone left in the train would be shivering thinking
of what was happening to this guy as his screaming was the worst I
ever heard.

I scrambled to my feet and put my
hands over my ears. I looked down on him. “Where’s
Vladimir?”

Nothing but screaming.

“
Vladimir?”

Too much pain to talk.

I grabbed the hammer’s handle and
twisted it. Through his newfound pain, he managed to point to the
front of the train with a trembling hand. He was crying. I hated
the sound of it. He looked pathetic, curled into a ball, tears
unleashed like a flood, mouth wide open with a deep wail of agony
pouring out. I silenced him for good. I looked at the hammer and
for a second thought about taking it with me. But I turned instead
and began walking towards the front of the train. I didn’t bother
hiding or creeping or tip-toeing. He knew I was coming.

Anyone with half a brain knew
something unpleasant was taking place outside. It would be a safer
bet to remain hidden. Venturing out into the darkness where all the
screaming was taking place would be ill advised. Surely Vladimir
was nestled in a crook or a shadow with a gun aimed at the only
entrance waiting to shoot the first thing that enters. It was
common sense. Even I would.

I smiled in spite of
myself.

I flexed my black wings. They were
speckled with blood. They’d be soaked red by dawn.

Then a figure stepped into view in
front of the train. He was big. Close to The Bear’s size, I
figured. Maybe they were related. But this guy wasn’t twitchy or
excited. He stood slightly stooped. He looked old in the darkness.
His upper body was gigantic though. I paused. I saw no weapon. He
wasn’t shooting at me yet, so I thought he didn’t have a gun. I
stopped for a second. It felt like an old fashioned shootout.
Neither of us moved. Tension was thick.

I broke the ice. I began walking
towards him with confident, purposeful steps. “Don’t move,
Vladimir.”

“
Vwut do you vwant?” he
sounded like a helpless old man, speaking painfully slow,
stretching words like elastic. His Russian accent made
w
’s sound like
v
’s. It was irritating.
It was cold. I hated it.

“
I want to see you behind
bars.”

He stiffened. “I do not see your
badge.”

“
I’m not the
law.”

I was twenty yards away and moving
steadily. He moved, straightened his back out and began flexing his
fingers, as if they were going to see some action.

“
You have killed my men.”
Vladimir’s voice wasn’t so frail anymore. He was angry and
suspicious.

“
And you’re
next.”

“
Come to me, American. Let
me see you up close.”

I kept going. I was two boxcars away.
“I’ll be the last thing you see.”

“
You?”

I kept walking.

“
You are making big
mistakes tonight. You have no idea who I am.”