Page 7 of The Mad Don
Shit shit!
The tire is going to last me about thirty seconds. I tap the receiver against my ear with my injured hand.
“Pakhan.”
“Yana.” His voice is immediate. “Report.”
“We are compromised.”
A half-second of silence on the other end.
“All of them?”
“All six.”
“Where are you?”
“Coming off the property. The Italians are not here.”
I have to shout it over the wind coming through the broken windshield. “They were never here. The house was a feint. They are on the way to you, Pakhan; they may already be on you. Giovanni is our guy.”
The car swerves again. The back tire is going.
“Get clear,” Kirill orders. “Get somewhere safe. I have the dock.”
“Pakhan, I am on my way!”
“Yana. Get clear!”
The line cuts.
* * *
The back tire is fully gone. I can hear it slapping against the wheel well with every rotation, and the car is pulling to the right, and I keep correcting with one hand on the wheel. My left arm is useless against my side. There is blood pooling in the seat under me. The eastern dock is fifteen minutes away.
I make it in nine.
I hear the gunfire as I see the dock. It is muffled by the wind and by the distance, then suddenly it is not. I am turning off the access road, the air is full of the dry crack of rifles, and the orange flash of muzzle fire is breaking the dark between the shipping containers.
I drive the car straight at the gate. The barrier is down, so I hit it. The hood crumples, but the airbag does not deploy. My head slams against the wheel, and I taste blood in my mouth. I push the door open and jump out before the car stops.
Then I am up and running. I run through the open ground at a sprint with my gun in my right hand. Two men with rifles are behind a low concrete divider thirty meters to my left, firing toward the cargo area. They do not see me until I am already past them. I shoot the closer one in the back of the head, and the second one turns, and I shoot him before his rifle is up.
Kirill.Had his men turned on him, too?
I turn the corner of a stacked row of containers, and the dock opens up in front of me. There are bodies on the concrete. The shipping truck is parked at the loading bay with its back doors open, and its driver is slumped against the front wheel. Men in black are going between the containers, calling to each other in Italian. I run into the cover of a forklift, and I scan around.
I cannotseeKirill.
I press the receiver. “Pakhan, Pakhan, report.”
There is static.
“Kirill.”
Nothing.
I tiptoe out from cover and run along the edge of the containers. I shoot one man as I pass him. I shoot another at the end of the row. My right shoulder is doing all the work, and my hand is steady, and my arm is shaking with adrenaline and not yet with shock. I have minutes before shock catches me. I have to find him in those minutes.
