Killer of Killers (18 page)

Again upright, he turned his head but
couldn’t see beyond the smothering smoke. By the fireworks past his
assailants, Trent gauged his position and found the controls, but
multiple raps changed nothing. The cab seemed to be moving through
the shaft with a life of its own.

Conscious of the next attack, Trent spun
around just as a powerhouse approached. He ducked under the blow,
and the follow through pounded the man closing from the opposite
side.

The punched man was down, and the other, a
dark shape in the haze. Trent recognized his opportunity, and he
took advantage of it by launching a series of strikes to the
shadowy head. But the Asian fighter proved to be just as agile and
equally shrewd. He used his own skill to prevent himself from being
an easy target. Despite numerous connections, none of Trent’s blows
hit the necessary nerves to put him out for good.

To regain the offensive, the man bulled
forward just as his ally attacked, and both fighters impacted Trent
simultaneously. At that moment, the doors slid open, and in a
spewing of smoke, they plowed through another group of residents,
knocking them all to the floor. Before the doors conjoined, Trent
exerted a one hundred, eighty degree turn but couldn’t dislodge his
aggressors. Instead, their continued push slammed them back into
the elevator, which, upon closing, trapped them inside once
again.

With an elbow strike, Trent ousted the one on
his right, but the other pinned his arms from behind. The dislodged
fighter swiped the fumes for a better view and unleashed a barrage
of blows to Trent’s head. Trent rolled with the punches, and the
slugger must have realized his roundhouses were taking no toll,
because he wound his fist for a pile-driving straight punch. Trent
sensed it coming and jerked his head to the side, and a second time
the puncher struck his cohort, knocking him back to the
cloud-covered floor.

Visibility was near zero. The swirls were
thick blankets over Trent’s eyes, and he used the handicap to his
advantage. The upright man was swinging blindly through the mist,
and Trent perceived the hectic motion. He flanked him and waited
for the first sign of a target. A shift in the smoke revealed a
leg, and Trent shot a side-kick to the knee, tearing the medial
collateral ligaments. The man screamed in agony but did not fall.
He swooped over and grabbed his damaged leg, but in doing so, he
moved enough smoke to allow Trent a view of his lowered head. Here
was an opening to fire a fatal blow to the ariculo-temporal nerve.
Just as he delivered the strike, the man’s partner sprang through
the haze and pinned Trent to the wall.

Trent switched his focus to the aggressor who
wrapped him in yet another chokehold. This time the grip
effectively blocked both his airway
and
his arteries. Only
moments remained before death would result. Escape had to be now.
The strangler’s arms were committed above Trent’s shoulders,
exposing the nerves in his lower torso. Trent fired a double-strike
to his sides, impacting the lumbar plexus nerves under the rib
cage.

The blow forced a release of the
stranglehold, and the man slithered into the elevator’s rear
corner. Trent coughed incessantly and settled himself on the
opposite end. It was a race in time. Which one of them would
recover first and press the advantage? Peering through gaps in the
murky vortex, Trent locked eyes with his foe and knew they were
thinking the same.

Suddenly, the black-suited fighter sprang
forward but tripped over his smog-hidden ally. Trent jumped high
enough to clear the diving man, spun a mid-air one eighty, and
drove his knees into the man’s kidneys as he bellied the floor.
Instantly, Trent applied a stranglehold of his own. With every
ounce of strength, he increased the pressure of a triangle choker,
knowing his enemy had no leverage with which to escape. He knew,
also, that in a few more seconds the
Hadaka Sankaku
would
end the fight forever.

But few as they were, the seconds were slow.
The floored fighter thrashed about, his contorted face purpled from
the strain and blocked circulation. He opened his mouth in one last
soundless gasp, and his body fell limp.

Trent didn’t let up. He locked the hold until
he was sure. Finally, he let go and stood up. He nudged the man
with his foot and knew he was dead. He nudged the other. His
earlier strike had been true.

The struggle was over. Trent stretched his
back and reached high with both of his arms. He bent his head to
the right and then to the left. The sizzling fissure spent its
final sparks, but its dying breath still fumed, and the bodies lay
hidden within a thick and swirling cloud. Trent raised his hand
inches from his face. There was nothing but incandesced white
interrupted by gray. He turned, stretched his arm through the mist,
and bulls-eyed the button he knew to be
20
. Justice awaited.
It was time she was served.

* * * *

Still seated in the lobby, the pink-skirted
Carla anticipated the events she believed would result in the
handsome stranger’s demise. She crossed her arms and looked on as
several residents entered the lobby by way of the staircase. Some
looked flustered, and women fixed their hair as they walked. Others
smoothed out rumples or brushed a smoky tang from their clothes.
All were talking about the fight in the elevator.

“That poor man being picked on by those
Chinese brutes,” the senior woman said. She received an icy stare
from her Asian counterpart.

“They were Koreans,” the Asian woman
jeered.

One of the younger men proclaimed, “We all
got bowled over. Dude, they scored a strike on us!”

Another youth gushed, “Did anyone else see
the big dead guy on the nineteenth floor?”

Pressed to uncertainty, Carla leaned forward
and poked her cell phone. She held it to her ear. The unanswered
call convinced her to whom the youth referred. She sprang to her
feet, poked more buttons, and returned the phone to the side of her
head.

* * * *

On the twentieth floor, the prostitute’s
apartment was the end unit down the hall and around two corners
from the main shaft. The VIP lift shared the hall with the entrance
to her pad. One of the two men outside it reacted to the chimes
sounding from within his coat. His name was Alejandro—a dark-haired
Cuban hired by the senator—and like Ricardo, his Puerto Rican
counterpart, he trained his eyes on the corridor beyond.

“Yes, it’s Alejandro,” he said in a light
Spanish accent. “No, everything’s cool up here.” He listened for a
few more seconds and responded again, “The elevator? No. Nothing.
Nobody.” He lowered the phone and leaned his head to inspect the
corridor. He strained to look past the lift through which his boss
had arrived. The other shaft was not in view.

Putting the phone to his mouth, Alejandro
said, “I’ll check it out,” and then he thrust it back into his
coat. When he extracted his hand, it held a Beretta 418. Turning to
Ricardo, he said, “Vamos a chequear el elevador. Necesitamos
encontrar el hombre con camisa negra.”

Ricardo drew his own weapon—a Walther PPK.
Alejandro led the way down the corridor, not quite knowing what to
expect. How could an assassin have made it past the men on the
nineteenth floor?

At the corner, they stopped. Alejandro wasn’t
eager to step out and expose himself to the connecting corridor,
and clearly, neither was Ricardo. Alejandro put his back to the
wall and peeked around the bend. There was nothing. He signaled
Ricardo. They made the same trek down the next corridor and
repeated the maneuver. It was another empty passageway, but the
elevator was now in view, and they ventured forth. Facing the
shaft, they witnessed the 20
^th
dial ignite. They pointed
their weapons and braced for a target.

Ding.

The doors swooshed apart, but a wall of smoke
was all they saw. Nothing, not even a puff obtruded. They traded
glances, and Alejandro was unsure what to do next. He gestured for
Ricardo to move first. With gun in hand, Ricardo inched toward the
mist, inserted an arm, and waved it sideways. Suddenly, off the
floor he flew, and into the mist he disappeared.

Alejandro was about to fire, but the doors
bounded shut. He reached out, pressed the button, and backed away.
The doors spread wide. He leveled his Beretta, but still there was
only thick, perplexing smoke, and he discerned no movement.
“Ricardo!” he shouted. “Ricardo, donde estas?”

There was no answer—only a creepy silence.
Unwilling to step near the mist, Alejandro remained transfixed,
ready to shoot.

In the haze, something began to form. Upright
and threatening, it was only a shadow, but it swelled. Fearing for
his life, Alejandro pulled the trigger, firing once, twice, three
shots point blank. Confident his bullets found the heart of the
specter, he held his position. As the rigid shape emerged from the
cloud, it became recognizable. It was
Ricardo
.

“Ricardo,” he muttered. “No!” Alejandro
caught the falling body against his chest, but the dead weight
forced him to his knees.

* * * *

Trent leaped from the cubicle, swiped the
bodyguard’s pistol out of his hand, and followed with an
instantaneous chop to the great auricular nerve under the jawbone.
The man collapsed with his partner sprawled beside him.

Trent viewed the two men prone at his feet.
They were deathly still. He touched their necks, one after the
other. Both had succumbed.

A deep breath cleared Trent’s lungs and
renewed his vigor. He dragged the bodies, one at a time, and
plopped them into the elevator, which he put on hold. It was time
he delivered justice to the man needing it the most.

When Trent reached the door of his objective,
he stopped and faced it squarely. He wasn’t sure if he should knock
politely or bust it down with a powerful kick. Just as he decided
on the powerful kick, he detected movement from inside. He paused
to listen and heard footsteps headed his way. The murdering lawman
was coming to him!

The lock disengaged, the dead bolt released,
and when the door opened, there stood the tall senator. His eyes
bulged, and with his hands on his hips, he asked, “What is this,
some kind of joke?”

“No joke.”

“Then who are
you
?”

“A disgruntled voter,” Trent sneered.

Before Robinson could utter another word,
Trent shot the heel of his hand through the bridge of his nose,
cramming the cartilage of the septum into the frontal lobe of his
brain. The resulting hemorrhage of the anterior cerebral artery
took the senator’s life within moments. He stiffened, teetered
backward, and fell with a thump to the carpeted floor.

A woman called out from the bedroom, “Buddy,
what’s the matter?” She cracked the door open, glanced at
Robinson’s unmoving body, and then stared at Trent. Trent stared
back. With a huff, she slammed the door.

Trent examined the senator’s corpse. He saw
the impression of a circular medallion through the taught shirt.
His mission accomplished, he sauntered back to the elevator,
leaving a smoky trail the length of the corridor.

* * * *

On the first floor, Carla was waiting for a
call, but her cell phone didn’t ring. She crossed the lobby to the
elevator and observed the luminous numbers denoting its descent. It
was
him
. The stranger had prevailed, she was sure. Though
apprehensive, she felt a surge of exhilaration at the same time.
Did he really kill all those men? Goose bumps covered her body. Her
pulse raced faster and faster.

The shaft sounded,
ding,
and the doors
slid apart. All Carla could see was a flat plane of smoke. She
frowned, unable to decipher the contents of the cab. Then the smoke
moved outward, and the man she met in the lobby appeared. Opaque
vapors billowed from his crumpled clothes, and the ceiling’s
artificial luminescence morphed his form into a ghostly shadow. She
could only voice a high-pitched gasp.

The man stopped within inches of Carla’s
face, and a second time they settled into mutual stares.
Enthralled, she couldn’t avert her eyes. She could only wonder what
kind of man was this standing before her. His gaze moved from hers.
Saying nothing, he passed her, and she watched him vanish past the
lobby’s central doors.

Carla turned back to the gaping elevator. The
cloud of smoke had thinned, revealing a gruesome scene in its
interior. She widened her eyes and gasped again. The bold assassin
had stacked it with all five bodies of the men who were supposed to
have stopped him.

* * * *

Marching up the St. Paul boulevard, Trent
looked more like a walking chimney, he was sure, than a
time-strapped pedestrian. Heads turned and fingers pointed, but he
ignored the peripheral fuss. He fixed his gaze ahead and never
bothered looking back.

Chapter Ten

Honor, Solace, and Ancient
Sparta

The Transamerica building
loomed before Trent more impressive in person than on television or
in the photos he saw while living in Japan. He had never been
inside of it, but that was about to change. He allowed his gaze to
scale the tremendous obelisk and pondered the meeting he was
supposed to attend minutes from now. It crossed his mind to keep
walking and forget this Manoukian character, but he told Samantha
he would meet her friend, so he resigned himself to do just
that.

Trent entered the lobby, and there to greet
him were the statuesque siblings, Samantha and Joshua Jones.
Somehow, Samantha seemed more beautiful than ever. Her face glowed
with excitement. She wore a loose-fitting summer dress, light
orange, and hemmed at mid knee. “Trent, I’m so glad you came,” she
said. A vigorous hug supported the claim.