Vampire "Unleashed" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 3) (2 page)

The banker coughed his words, “Tungjatjeta, Erjon?... Erjon?”

The tinny voice in the speaker said, “Po.” Yes!

Dukanovic spoke frantically. His voice faltered and he swallowed mid-sentence. The performance of a man in fear of a police raid was perfect. Erjon Gjokeja asked questions with increasing alarm. He was doing it. It was working.

Paul stared deeply into Dukanovic’s eyes. He knew just enough Albanian to get by. His rehearsed statements had been convincing.

The call ended. The banker took in one huge inhalation and purged with a wail.

“Did they believe you?”

Dukanovic sunk in on himself, his head nodding as he cried. “I did my best. I told him like you said. They believed me about the police, but they don’t know if they should go to the bank. I tell them they should go. I tell them it is safe if they go now.”

Paul leaned forward to look onto the compound. “We’ll soon find out.”

A minute of silence.

Two minutes.

Three.

Voices from the distant home.

Even from the vantage point two hundred feet away Paul could hear agitated conversations in the courtyard. The sound of car doors and a revving engine. The electric gate to the compound rolling back.

“I think you did it,” Paul said to Dukanovic.

A powerful black car rolled out of the compound, a Chrysler 300. The villains had a big black car from a clichéd Mafia movie.

Paul hit the banker on the shoulder. “You did it, you fucking did it!”

The gate to the compound rolled closed and the Chrysler vanished from view. With luck it should take them a little over two hours.

“Okay… Stand up.”

Dukanovic got to his feet unsteadily. “Please, I did as you asked.”

Paul folded his chair and gave it to the banker to carry. He pointed downhill with one hand and pushed with the other.

“Please… I’m begging you,” the banker said again, turning to face Paul, resting the folded chair against his leg and pressing his hands together in prayer. “Please, I did what you asked.”

“Listen… Alek. It’s your name, yes? Alek?”

“Yes. Yes, I am Alek… Please, I won’t tell anybody.”

“There’s one last thing I want from you, Alek. It’s easy.” He tapped the handle of the sword against the man’s chest. “You’re going to stand still for a few hours and be quiet… If you do that, I will let you go unharmed. This is my promise, okay? You hear me? I promise. If you do what I say, I promise to let you go unharmed.” He pointed the way. “Now keep walking.”

Dukanovic didn’t respond. He picked up the chair and continued down to the road. It was a dirt track of pressed sandstone lined with tall trees. Paul guided the banker to the first bend and uncovered a cardboard box hidden beside a boulder. “Stand here,” he said. “Look that way, down the road.” Dukanovic did as he was told, still clutching the folded chair to his chest.

Paul lifted loops of steel cable from the box. There was a handcuff-like shackle joined to the cable that Paul clipped around the banker’s ankle. “Follow me,” he said as he walked across the road. He stretched out the steel cable and fixed it to a hidden bracket around a tree trunk on the opposite side. Once in place it formed a roadblock from a boulder on one side, to a tree on the other and a gobsmacked Montenegrin banker cuffed in the middle. Paul stepped back to admire his trap. It was solid.

Dukanovic dropped the chair and locked his fingers in his hair, his mouth was open and he stared at Paul without an ounce of doubt he’d been lied to about his chances.

“It’s not as bad as it looks, Alek. When they come back, they’ll see you and stop. That’s why you’re here… Don’t forget. I made you a promise.”

Paul left the banker and took a moment to look down onto Lake Skhodra. It glistened with a trillion sparkles. The main villa had a huge plate window that looked onto the lake. Ill-gotten wealth could barely have been spent on a more beautiful view.

“I wish I could show you this, Ildico,” he whispered. “One day I might. One day I might take you away from your troubles and fill your world with beauty.” The thought of being the one to do that, to bring her happiness, to enrich her life, was a daydream worthy of a few minutes. He closed his eyes for a few seconds then opened them to see the back of Ildico’s head as she stood in front of him, looking down onto the blue lake. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it Ildico?” She didn’t answer. Her hair caught in the breeze and blew to the side showing her neck and ear. How nice it would be to see her face. It would be wonderful if she smiled.

The almost imperceptible sound of the ankle shackle broke the daydream. From behind, Paul sensed Dukanovic bending over to examine the steel around his leg and when he turned he found him in the pose as surely as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Dukanovic froze in a half stoop, too afraid to move further.

Paul returned to him, took the folded chair and continued to the bend in the road.

A second length of steel cable was already prepared and hidden by the roadside. He checked the cable and rolled it out to rest loosely across the road. He would wait until the Gjokeja’s passed, then he would reel it in and hook it to a brace around a tree trunk to form another roadblock behind their car. They would be trapped in a killzone.

“I hope this works, Ildico,” he mused. “I really hopes this works.” Christ in heaven, this could all go fucking pear shaped. What if they got out of the car and ran in different directions? He needed them together.

“I’m going to need all of your help, Ildico. I’m going to need you with me for this.”

Two hours…

The Gjokeja’s would be two hours at the minimum if everything went according to plan. Of course their movements were guesswork, but there was no reason to believe they would break from Dukanovic’s instructions.

“I need your help Ildico. Please. Send me your help for what I’m about to do.”

He retreated into bushes and unfolded the chair. Through the foliage of the hide he could see the banker standing idle in the road and he could see the route the Gjokeja’s would have to approach by.

Now he would wait.

A wasp buzzed around his head. He swatted it away.

Wait…

Waiting…

It took three hours.

He heard the car long before he saw it. The engine getting steadily louder.

“Please, Ildico, protect me from harm. I’m coming for you, Ildico. Protect me.”

The roadblock cable was tied off with twine and in Paul’s hands it suddenly felt too thin. His hands were sweating.

This was it.

The engine got louder.

There was no turning back.

Paul looked through the foliage. Dukanovic, baking in the sun and sweating, was suddenly erect and alert. He’d heard it too.

“Don’t rush,” he whispered to himself. “Let them pass.”

He made a conscious decision to put the sword on the floor beside him, then rethought the strategy and got off the chair entirely so he could rest on one knee.

“Be with me, Ildico. Help me. Help me succeed.”

The car came into view.

“Protect me Ildico…”

This was it.

“This is for you and the baby.”

A fine trail of sandstone dust flowed from the tyres as the car passed.

Paul yanked the twine too harshly, too much haste and eagerness. He wound in the cable and grabbed the carabiner on the end of the roadblock. He pulled it toward the tree trunk. It took all of his strength to pull it taut.

He heard the car wheels grinding against sandstone, the tyres skidding in dust.

He linked the carabiner to the metal hoop making a barrier behind the car.

He had them. He had them locked in an attack box.

Paul grabbed the sword and pushed out of the bush.

The car had stopped.

The banker was pointing at him, screaming a warning to the Gjokejas. The passenger side door opened and a huge man with sunglasses and thick grey hair leapt out. It was Erjon, the biggest and oldest of the brothers. He threw his arm across the roof of the car and a flash of light burst from his fist with a bang.

The bullet flew wildly to the side.

Paul ducked low, using the position of the car to his advantage, closing in as he obscured himself below the vehicle. Erjon fired again and again. His weapon making a pop-pop-pop sound with the shots but the angle was too awkward.

The engine revved and the car rushed backward throwing up a cloud of yellow dust. The rear door opened to a narrow crack to reveal the second brother, the thin and wiry Lorik Gjokeja who began shooting through the gap in the door. He was closer, he had direct line of sight.

The situation slowed…

Slowed further…

Slow like a snail…

Paul could see everything. He could see Erjon move away from the car to the left. He could see shockwaves of yellow lines travelling from Erjon’s chest and shoulder, down his arm to the gun in his hand. The gun wasn’t aimed well and on each trigger pull Erjon tilted his weapon one or two degrees to the right. The shot would miss by a mile. Lorik was the danger. It was Lorik he needed to evade. Paul darted right to get behind the car, thinking he could shield himself, but bullets shattered through the back window, blowing the blackened glass into silvery cobwebs.

Ahead of him, Erjon’s gun locked as he fired his last shot, he went for a spare clip. Paul ran hard and fast towards him. Erjon pressed the button to release the empty magazine. Paul readied his sword. The magazine escaped the gun and fell through the air as Paul stabbed through Erjon’s flank and all the way out through his liver. He saw an explosion of electrical energy shoot through the man’s nervous system as yellow lines of pain rushed from the wound. He twisted the sword as he withdrew it and swung it once with a two handed grip, cutting Erjon’s sunglasses in two across the bridge and leaving a deep wound to his face.

A shot came from the car, this time bursting through the front window.

The car was picking up speed in reverse. Erjon was going down slowly, toppling forward as he gripped his side. The car rolled backwards until it hit the roadblock. The effect was undramatic. The car stopped, the treetops shrugged on impact. Lorik opened the back door, got out and backed away whilst pointing the gun in defence. The driver’s door opened. Aldo, the third and final Gjokeja brother tried to get out but Paul slashed across his face and aimed at his throat before he could even clear the doorway.

A bullet hit the windscreen. The whole pane of glass frosted into tiny cubes. The shot came from behind, from Erjon.

Paul went for Aldo a second time but the door obscured him, he tried to stab across it and got him solidly in the chest, but the man grabbed the blade and fell back into the car, taking the sword with him.

Another shot from behind. Erjon was on his side, blood pouring from his face. Immobile but still dangerous, he’d managed to reload and continue shooting.

Another shot, this time from the far side.

Lorik, the second gunman.

Paul was trapped between two shooters. He’d lost the sword.

He watched Lorik aim the gun. He saw the electrical impulses cascade down his arm. It was going to be tight. Paul pulled his body harshly to the floor, trying to take cover behind the wing of the car.

The shot whizzed past his ear as Lorik stumbled backwards and tripped over the roadblock. He fell flat on his back and ran his hands over his body to find the injury as to why he’d fallen. A mistake made in panic. He’d taken his eyes off the action.

Paul rushed in, unlocking the karambit from his chest, the knife fitting into his fist, the tiger claw protruding from the bottom of his hand. The first blow was a punch across the nose, the blade slashing Lorik’s cheek, mouth and tongue. The return slash hit his throat. Lorik had already dropped the gun and now tried to push his hands out in defence, but there is no protection against a karambit at close range. Paul aimed a punch at his bloody maw and felt the hooked blade slice down the forearm and into the muscle running a cut from wrist to armpit as deep as the bone.

It went still.

Erjon had stopped shooting. He was laying serenely like a drunk who had passed out in the street. The car engine had stopped. Below him he felt Lorik softening as his muscles relaxed into death and suddenly noticed the powerful smell of the man’s cologne. Blood was pooling around his chest and head and his skin was going paler by the second.

Three armed men.

Three dead men.

He wiped the karambit on his cargo pants and locked it back into the holster, then checked himself for injury. Not a scratch.

He surveyed the area and listened to the stillness.

Dukanovic was still chained to the roadblock. His arms by his side, his expression stupefied.

Paul went to the car first.

The driver, Aldo, was slouched with his forehead resting on the steering wheel, the sword skewered through his chest. Blood dripped off his nose like a leaky faucet. On the back seat was a metal box, Paul popped the catches and opened it.

Money.

An incredible amount of money.

Thick packets of bank notes with paper bands around the wads of cash. In the boot he found another metal box holding mixed currency of Euros, US dollars, Swiss francs and small credit card sized pieces of clear plastic containing wafers of gold. There were documents here also, perhaps they were of value too. The gold was stamped .999 Fine Gold, One Troy Ounce, and the plastic cards bore serial numbers and holograms of authenticity. How much was an ounce of gold worth? No matter, in paper currency alone he must have a fortune between the two boxes.

He left the car and walked towards the banker.

“You said you would let me go!” the man shouted in a strained voice. “You made a promise. Please. You remember? I know you keep your promises. Good men keep their promises.”

Paul walked closer. He withdrew the karambit.

“Please,” Dukanovic pleaded. “Please, please you promise. You tell me you will let me go.”

Paul took him down in the fastest and most painless way he knew. The move was called a noose. In a split second he’d grabbed Dukanovic’s head and pulled it forward whilst punching fast along the side of his neck to slice through the carotid artery.