Page 74 of Eyes in the Shadows

That’s it. That’s the last box. The rolling door of the truck comes down, closing in $500 mil of heavy weaponry.

I tap the bud in my ear. “No sign of him,” I say.

“I’m watching the house and traffic, I’ve got nothing,”Wes agrees with me.

“Fuck,”Dimitri says.“Okay. Plan B. Is the truck loaded?”

“Just about to leave,” I say, watching the driver move around to the front.

“I will move into position. Wesley, lead them to us.”

“Roger.”

The line goes dead. We all have our tasks. Wesley diverts the truck to their waiting trap, and he and Dimitri take care of the drivers and escort and stash the shipment in an old warehouse just purchased through a shell corporation. I take out most, but not all, of Rossi’s men left at the scene. So now, I just have to wait for my shot and hope it comes before they go their respective ways.

I stare through the scope and see the faces I’ve been memorizing from a combination of surveillance photos and mugshots. Nice of them to crowd together like that for me. Phil Beasley, Karthik Uman, Owen Johnson, Alec Putnam. Rossi’s top brass. Grigori Folson is missing, which isn’t surprising, as he’s Rossi’s right hand.

The other men in the group are not on my list, but I do recognize some of them as lower-ranking members of his crew. They’re the ones who’ve never shot a man in the kneecap for information, or weighed down a body bag before tossing it in the river. They’re the ones who don’t know what’s really going on behind their paycheck. The night shift security guard for the storage facility is with them, too—likely just shooting the shit because he’s bored at work.

These are the people my girl doesn’t want me to kill. So, I won’t.

I inhale, line up my shot, and blow the breath out slowly and controlled as I squeeze the trigger. Before anyone in the group registers the kill shot to the back of Karthik’s head that makes it explode, spraying everyone around him with red, I recover from the kickback and fire off another that catches Phil right between the eyes. Alec’s head moves, his face splattered with Karthik’s blood and brains, eyes wide with confused horror, and my last shot isn’t dead center because he turns. Still deadly, blowing out the whole front of his face from the side.

It’s Owen’s lucky night. He gets to be the one to describe to his boss the horror of seeing everyone around him die violently, and the unparalleled fear of not knowing where the threat is coming from.

Pride swells at three—well, two and a half—perfect shots, just as all hell breaks loose in front of my eyes. Owen and the remaining low-level soldiers draw their own weapons as they scatter. The security guard shakes, locked in place in his fear, and I watch the wet spot grow down the leg of his pants.

“Keep it together, Harry,” I mutter to him. He’s just a rented warm body, a former high school jock with a taser gun. But he’s got protocol to follow—he should be running back to the office and calling the real police. We want that dirty cop, McCloskey, to know.

My heart rate is barely altered as I calmly pack everything into the Corolla. The nervous excitement that used to make my hands shake for hours ran out a long time ago, and now I’m left with the satisfaction of a well-executed plan and a dull buzz that runs throughout my body. At least I’ve never had to deal with the Sniper’s High—the feeling some of us get that instant you see someone’s head explode into a fine red mist. It’s a God complex thing, knowing you can choose who lives and who dies. It makes you want to just keep shooting, they say.

The trees shield my movements and the wet fallen leaves make gentle shushing noises under my feet. I’ve got another stop before I can go home to my girl. Based on Grigori’s habits, I know where he’ll be and I want to see if my hunch is right. After this kind of attack, Rossi needs to be informed. But if Rossi isn’t around, Owen will go to Grigori and McCloskey will be the one to break it to the big boss.

Before I head back, I take another moment to look in on the chaos. Owen is trying to organize the few guys left to check a perimeter, all the while trying not to look at the bodies, now missing significant chunks of their heads.

He’s on the phone—it’s a toss-up whether it’s Grigori or McCloskey. Or, maybe even Felix. I wouldn’t be surprised if he double-dips and plays both sides. Everyone needs a fixer now and then and he’s discreet enough that Rossi would never know that last week Felix took a job to dispose of the body of someone on his payroll.

It’s not a long drive to Eleanor’s apartment building, though I do park a block away and slip through the alleys in the dark to get to the back door. The building has dim lighting in the stairwell at night when it’s fully occupied, and it leaves me feeling exposed so I take the stairs two at a time.

The apartment is full of stale, undisturbed air and the sickly rotting scent of trash that should have been taken out last week. Well, she did leave in a hurry and my request for Felix was just to pack things, not take care of the trash.

Luckily, she doesn’t have anything that needs care, like plants, or pets…

Oh, wait. What was that thing she mentioned the first time we met? She was worried about the chemicals because it was alive… I open the fridge and see the jar of white goo. Yeah, that’s it. Whatever it is, it looks disgusting, so I check to make sure the lid is tight before shoving it into my pocket.

The view of The Lucky Goat from her window is pretty good, though the angle could be better to really see in—my field of view is narrow. But beggars can’t be choosers and spying from a dark apartment is better than being out on the street at 1 AM, or trying my luck with another unit on the first floor.

The binoculars in my other pocket are enough. I can see just well enough through the grimy windows to spot Grigori at the end of the bar. Some time passes, he nearly finishes his drink, then he lifts his phone to his ear. Suddenly, like something electrocutes him, he straightens and jumps up. The stool falls behind him, and the bartender and the only other patron of the bar at this hour swivel around to look at him.

Noticing the attention he’s drawing, he aggressively says something into the phone and starts pulling on his coat. When he busts through the door of the bar,I am tempted to open her window to hear. But he’s across the street and I doubt his voice would carry.

He fumbles with his keys, dropping them in a pile of gray snow on the street corner, unlocks his car with a flash of the headlights and climbs in.

So, Grigori knows now, and he’s likely headed to the crime scene. If he doesn’t get a DUI on the way.

The question is, where’s Rossi?

28

---