down the alley away from Jenks and the charging Ford.
Forgetting Josh, Jenks whipped around to face the speeding car and in one fluid motion, he jacked out the semiautomatic from the back of his pants. Snapping into a shooter’s stance, he readied the gun to fire.
Jenks never had a chance. As he aimed to fire, the car was upon him. Before releasing a shot, the Ford struck him head-on.
The car took his legs from under him, breaking them below the knees. His head thudded into the hood as he collapsed forward on broken legs. The velocity of the car and the angled windshield flipped Jenks over the top. He somersaulted one and a half times before crashing to the ground on his back. The car came to a skidding halt, the rear snapping around to overtake the front. The driver got out of the Ford, a gun in his hand, readied for use.
Josh ducked into an empty factory for cover and
stared through the broken windows. He saw the driver get out of the car after mowing down Jenks.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He couldn’t believe who stood over Jenks. It was James Mitchell. The indestructible cockroach had appeared out of the woodwork
again. Josh had to be content with seeing the play unfold, since he couldn’t hear what was being said. Some
thing
nailed his feet to the floor. He had to see what
Mitchell would do next. He’d thought Jenks and
Mitchell were partners, but Mitchell had just run him down. Now, he didn’t know what to think. Everything was thrown into the mix and he had yet to make something else from the ingredients.
Mitchell finished speaking to Jenks. He fired the gun twice into Jenks’s face. At the sight of the spearheads of flame leaving the gun, Josh jerked twice in shock.
He’d seen enough and ran. He burst out the other side of the building into another alley and turned left, away from the killers. At the end of the alley, he came to a scrabbling halt. He had a choice—left or right. He chose right and ran to where the alley narrowed to less than the width of a car.
The alley ended and Josh found himself in the quiet of a residential street with a cafe and other businesses occupying the corners. The street had old factories on one side and seedy-looking, poorly kept townhouses on the other. Cars beyond their prime littered the roadsides.
People were absent from the thoroughfare.
He stopped running. The only noises to be heard
were the sound of his heart pounding against his
ribcage and the sharp wracking breaths tearing in and out of his lungs. New sweat intermingled with old, coating his entire body. He wanted to stop, catch his breath, but there was no time. He looked as if he’d run a marathon in his work clothes. Josh disappeared into the alleys and side streets to safety.
The professional had chosen to keep an eye on Josh Michaels today, although it wasn’t necessary. He’d done all he needed to eliminate Michaels. The wheels were in motion and it was inevitable that the train would roll over his hapless victim. Interest, more than anything else, made him keep up his surveillance on Michaels. Today was funeral day, or so it seemed. The Michaels family, dressed in black, set off in their cars.
He followed them at a distance.
It had been unfortunate that Michaels’s friend Keegan had been killed instead of his target. It was the first time he’d killed an innocent party in the pursuit of an assignment. He would have had no regrets if Keegan had gone down with Michaels, but killing Keegan
without the target aboard was embarrassing.
Michaels dribbled out of the church with the rest of the congregation. The professional watched him speak to various mourners through binoculars. After separating from his wife and child, he got into a car with Bob Deuce.
The professional continued to follow his target to the cemetery and back to the church to drop Bob
Deuce at his car. His target’s next stop was at his job.
He’d expected to settle in for the afternoon, but after an hour Michaels was out the front door with a box in his arms.
“Looks like someone got canned. I suppose that’s the power of television,” he murmured to himself.
He followed Michaels home, parked five houses down and watched his target get out. A car, a red Chevy Malibu, passed him and pulled up outside the Michaels
home. The guy in the Malibu intercepted Michaels. He produced something out of his pocket and accompanied his target into the house.
“Damn, I don’t like this,” he said to himself. “This isn’t good at all.” The professional hadn’t picked up anything on the scanner, so it was unlikely to be a cop, but his presentation gave the impression he was. Something about the man was familiar, though. He was sure
he’d seen him before.
Moments later, the man led Michaels out of his
home. The professional started his car when Michaels got into the Chevy. He shadowed the Malibu into the matrix of downtown streets. The Malibu avoided the police department and was leaving the familiar landmarks for the dead side of town. Something’s going
down, Josh, can’t you see it?
The professional lagged one block behind his target and waited longer than necessary at the intersections.
“Shit!” he exclaimed. He saw Michaels’s failed attempt to make a run for it at the intersection ahead and saw the gun at his head. The Malibu drove on and he followed suit.
The professional seethed. The moment he saw the
gun, he realized what was going down. That fuck has hired someone else to finish up my work. He couldn’t wait. Son of a bitch! He had it all under control. Tyrell just had to give him time. The executive had cheated him. Moreover, he had insulted him by hiring another hitter. It was like finding your wife in bed with your brother. Tyrell would be sorry for the betrayal.
Angry, the professional screeched to a halt at the next intersection, where the failed escape had taken place. He was stuck there longer than he liked. Traffic poured past in what seemed a never ending stream. He watched the car cross the rail lines and disappear down one of the alleys by the abandoned factories.
The traffic parted and he raced the white car across the junction. Once past the light rail crossing, he slowed and turned into the alley where the red Chevy had stopped.
They were out of the car. Michaels was walking
backward away from the killer as he bore down on him.
Michaels spotted him and the professional reacted to it.
The professional floored the accelerator into the carpet.
The car lurched forward, slithering on the loose
surface. Michaels made off like a rat up a drainpipe.
His competition went for his weapon.
“Too late, my friend, far too late,” the professional murmured.
He drove straight at his would-be replacement. His eyes filled with the man with the gun. Upon impact, the man blocked out the world, but he swiftly disappeared as he bumped over the roof. Josh Michaels had gone.
The professional slammed on the brakes and the Ford came to a sliding stop.
Grabbing his Colt and its suppressor from the glove compartment, the professional clambered from the
Taurus. Screwing the silencer onto the pistol, he walked over to the battered body of the other killer.
He lay on his back, blood oozing from contusions to his face and head. His legs were unnaturally positioned, as if he possessed a pair of additional joints between the knees and ankles. His hands no longer
gripped a gun nor would they; most of his fingers were shattered and skin was missing at the tips. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and down the side of his dust-frosted face. He looked like a rejected china doll.
The professional pointed the gun at the competition.
“I know you. It’s Joseph Henderson, isn’t it?”
