Alix Knew.
Knew, that he was being followed.
The footsteps were almost inaudible behind him and he increased his stride. He blinked, raindrops falling from his eyelashes. When he reached the steps, he sprinted to the top and momentarily paused to get his bearings by a large metal wheelie-bin overflowing with rubbish and stink, turned right and after a short distance, darted into a narrow alleyway.
Alix halted, listening, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. He stepped backwards into the dark shadows of a goods entrance and lit a cigarette, hands cupped against the wind and rain. Smoke plumed above him, and as the slim platinum lighter was replaced in his jacket pocket so the Beretta found its way into his grip. He pulled the lethal weapon from its holster and immediately screwed the silencer in place, and then shoved it into an outside pocket of the long black overcoat.
Still hidden by the gloom — he turned.
A casual glance back up the alley.
Nothing.
Alix stepped out of the shadows and walked on down the alley, under metal fire escapes, under heavy drips from a dark and brooding night sky that looked down upon this over populated struggling city with malevolence. In the distance the bright sleazy neon lights of Soho glittered in the rain and Alix felt his smartphone vibrate and buzz, relaying a signal from the Scorpion Unit’s main-frame computer system. The state-of-the-art system that was running a predator detection programme that was locked onto Alix’s data-chip inside the smartphone, and was scanning a fifty metre perimeter around him, had picked up at least four assailants following. He glanced at the screen; “Shit.”
Somebody wanted him bad…
Alix increased his pace again, flicking the cigarette aside and taking a right, down another narrow alleyway. He moved quickly with the minimum of effort, his eyes moved up, checking, scanning and adjusting. He reached the end and moved out into a quiet side street, and singled out a parked BMW, silver with blacked out windows, almost new and standing out from the other city-scarred vehicles. He crouched behind it, sighting the Beretta down the side of the highly polished bodywork, using the door mirror to steady his aim.
Four — maybe five…
Damn it, thought Alix. Who was it after him? Was it an organisation, or, was it a terrorist group?
Either way — he was in the shit and the gravest danger… If it was a terrorist group after him, taking them out would have to be quick — and would not be that easy — even though he was better trained and he had the benefit of surprise.
Or maybe it was just a just random gang, heavily armed and out looking for an easy target to rob? If it was the latter — then the problem would be erased in a matter of a few seconds.
Or maybe it was a rogue government dept…
The rain continued to fall.
Alix waited…
A noise, firstly from the darkened doorway of a nearby shop on the opposite side of the road. The second, much louder from the alley, alerted him. He turned, eyes still watching the entrance to the alley, some twenty metres away. The noises were too loud to be made by these secret followers. There was no element of stealth…
A group of five or six big eastern European men appeared from out of the alley, wearing the latest designer label suits and shoes. Their gazes turned towards Alix, who was by now casually leaning against their Silver BMW X5. Their faces took on a hardened expression of annoyance and anger.
They came out of the alley and while still walking towards Alix, one of them shouted. “Get the fuck off of my car.” He had a heavy accent reminiscent of a heavy weight boxer having gone several rounds.
“Chill out, mate. I’m not doing any harm.” Alix smiled easily.
The response was anything but chilled — a fusillade of bullets screamed and slammed into the side of the BMW, and Alix hit the ground hard, rolled over once and fired the Beretta from under the vehicle. The first man who had spoken; went down with a shattered knee, the bullet had gone right through his knee cap — blood started to ooze down his leg as he was hit by a second round to the groin
— he went down hard onto the ground screaming in agony. There were shouts, the other men produced small Uzi machine pistols and a small scale war ensued with the BMW X5 taking the full force of the frenzied fire-fight.
“Bastards…”
Alix backed away from the vehicle and into one of the shop doorways, back-kicked, the heavy looking door with as much force as he could muster, and spun into total darkness.
Screams and the thwack of bullets ripping through flesh followed him as he continued to fire the Beretta at his pursuers.
One of the followers had got so close behind him, that blood had spattered across the back of Alix’s overcoat from the bullet that had ripped his throat open.
Alix ran, dodging display stands and mannequins that loomed suddenly from the gloom. The Beretta felt heavy in his hand now as he moved through to the back of the building. He glanced down at the smartphone in his other hand, the screen displayed four followers, had logged their exact position on the grid and was now plotting Alix’s escape route for him…
A thought crossed his mind — perhaps one of the local gangs would hear the gun-fight and come running to take out these mysterious Assassins?
No. He should assume the worst scenario; that the four left would follow; and that all four were heavily armed and under orders to seek and destroy their target — him.
He burst out through the back door and into an alleyway. Long powerful legs pushing him forward until he came to a solid metal door that must have led out into the street on the other side, and which had a digital lock securing it. His only chance was a fire escape directly above him. Pulling down a steel first-stage ladder he took the metal plates two at a time up to the first floor; pulled the lower section up after him and continued up towards the roof of the five storey building. At the fourth floor he looked back down into the alley — there was no one following — he entered the building through a window and found himself standing in a brightly lit hallway. Residential apartments over the ground floor shops. He ran on, producing a small silent chemical detonated death grenade from his pocket, which he tossed over the edge of the stairwell. If the four men had not pursued him into the ally, it was only because they had known it to lead nowhere. This meant that they were still inside the building, and most likely closing in on him from below.
He pulled the pin on the dull black coloured grenade and tossed it over the edge of the stairwell, Alix heard the metallic click as it hit the tiled floor of the lobby below and bounced once.
There was a muffled crack, and then a hiss.
A moment later, a bellow of angry hot air came back up the stairwell, rushing past him like the approach of a fast moving underground train through a tunnel. He didn’t wait around to see if the grenade had created death and carnage: if nothing else, it would make his pursuers much more cautious. His head snapped around to his right at the sound of a group of people, laughing as their party spilled out through the doorway of the flat.
He started walking towards them, while all the time he was looking around for a way out, and then spotted the doorway to the fire escape stairwell.
This is good, very good.
People — they make brilliant cover…
As dreadful as that might seem.
He went to move past the revellers, and a young woman grabbed him playfully by the arm in her drunken state, and dragged him inside the flat to dance with her. Alix felt a little out of place wearing the long black overcoat in a room full of scantily clad university students, he removed it and managed to detach himself and decided to leave through a door on the other side of the room. He passed through another door, and into some kind of sparsely furnished smoke-stinking back living room, which was in desperate need of re-decorating. An untidy mess of dirty dinner plates were stacked on a low coffee table, together with a number of discarded beer cans, errant tangles of partypopper streamers and general mess. The distant music interrupted Alix’s pause for thought. Student’s party? He quickly discarded the overcoat onto a hook on the back of the door he’d just come through, made sure the Beretta was properly holstered and concealed. And went back to the party again.