Chapter 15

November 14, 19:25 SAST. Cape Town, Long Street, Daiki’s Nightclub.

The concussion of the .50 Desert Eagle still rang in my ears when TC gave the signal to advance. The lead group slipped down the passage towards the next staircase. Why they put a suppressor on a Desert Eagle is beyond me. The thing is just as loud as without a suppressor. But hey, Darya knows how that thing works, and she is fast and deadly accurate with it.

Frog-leaping ahead to clear the way, the two TC Ranger squads moved with precision and soon we were at the top of the stairs. More Yakuza members were scattered throughout the passage on the next floor, but they weren’t expecting us and they were lax and laid back. This made our task much easier than we had anticipated.

Six more of Daiki’s “security force” taken down! Suppressors do muffle the sound, but a few pops going off in quick succession gets the attention of anybody who is just halfway alert, and after the smoke cleared I counted eight bodies lying scattered in the passage. How much more resistance we would encounter I didn’t know.

We pressed forward, and my eyes were on Daiki’s office. TC had started a room-to-room search, and I found myself with only Darya and Boomer to back me up. Yakuza members were either running away or had been taken down, and we found ourselves in front of a heavy wooden door decorated with a dragon emblem. So, this must be Nakamura’s office.

Now, who in his right mind would lock an office door if he was inside? Well, we did not know if Nakamura was in his office or not. Boomer tried the door, and it opened.

A stunned Nakamura was standing next to a chair with a girl with long black hair in disarray. I recognised Mai-Loan’s clothing. It was the same outfit she had on when she went out to the shops. She looked drugged and out of it. He reacted and grabbed the pistol that was on his desk.

Things happened fast. Boomer and Darya flashed into the room, taking up positions on each side of the door with their backs to the wall, covering the room with their guns. Nakamura was behind Mai-Loan and to take a shot at him was fruitless. We could hit Mai-Loan.

“Feeling lucky, Nakamura?” I called as I entered the room, my gun at the ready.

Daiki Nakamura’s eyes did not show any sign of alarm. He was in fact, calm with a grin on his face.

“So, the well-spoken-of Joe Smith enters my domain,” he calmly greeted. “I’ve been waiting to kick your sorry ass and see you die together with this bitch!”

“You touched the wrong crowd, Nakamura.”

“And here he is, the most resilient man in Cape Town. Funny I thought I had that honour.”

“I came to get my girls from you, you monster, and they better be in good shape!”

“You open a closet, it’s just a closet. You can never find the monster that hides inside ... not until it jumps and swallows you!” Daiki Nakamura said, and I thought he was on drugs.

“But I think we’ve been talking long enough. We both know how has to end. So, are you ready?”, he taunted me.

“The question is: Are YOU ready!” I hissed.

“I was born ready...” Daiki smirked. “Goodbye Mister Joe Smith!”

I expected him to level his gun at me and take a shot. Instead, he yanked Mai-Loan out of the chair, dragged her in front of him and placed his gun barrel against her right temple.

“I am going to kill her anyway, but not now. She’s now my insurance to get out of here.” he chortled and started to back up towards his desk. I saw no opening to fire without hitting Mai-Loan. To me it looked like Mai-Loan was drugged, for she did not respond at all. Daiki dragged her like a rag-doll around his desk.

Reaching the back of his desk Daiki stood still, grinning an evil smirk. A wall panel behind him opened, he pulled Mai-Loan through the opening, and the panel shut. Dammit!

I rushed forward and got to the wall. It was solid. Then I noticed a pressure plate on the floor. I stepped on it, and the wall panel opened up. I rushed through the opening with Darya and Boomer short on my heels. We found ourselves outside the building, on the steel landing of a fire escape, three stories up from the ground level.

The footsteps I heard were above me, disappearing up the fire escape towards the roof. Boomer was speaking rapidly on his two-way radio.

“Let’s go!” I instructed and started up the steel stairs.

Meanwhile, in a room on the fourth floor, two Yakuza members heard the popping sounds of silenced gun fire and reacted by trying to rush out the door.

Lying on a bed in the room, Angie also heard the gunfire. Her hands were tied with nylon cable ties at her wrists. But the bozos neglected to tie her feet or legs, and left her hands tied in front!

Between her and the door was a wooden kitchen chair. Like a bolt of lightning Angie was on her feet and reached for the back rest of the chair. Bozo number one was at the door to open it when Angie smashed the chair down on bozo number two. It smashed into his head and neck and shattered into pieces of sharp wood shards.

Blood gushed out of an open wound near the crown of bozo number two’s head, and his lights were practically switched off. He tumbled over his own feet and went down like a sack of potatoes.

Bozo number one heard the commotion behind him and turned around in the open door. He saw Angie standing with legs spread, still holding the broken off chair back in her hands, an evil snarl on her face and her green eyes firing cold fury. She tried to rush him but stopped in astonishment as a small round red bloody hole appeared on his chest. An angry bee buzzed past her and hit the wall behind, sending cement plaster splinters flying off in all directions.

Bozo number one looked at Angie, and the gun in his hand dropped to the floor as his fingers lost their grip. Then his eyes glazed over, and he slowly toppled forward, falling on his face and lying still.

“Your carriage awaits, my lady...” TC said from the door. Angie dropped the broken remnants of the chair, rushed up to him, placed her tied hands over his head and around his neck, and hugged him.

She recovered her composure and untangled from TC, blushing blood-red in her face as she stepped away from him.

“Sorry ... Where’s Ash?”

“Killing Nakamura! Let me cut those cable ties” replied. He took out his combat knife from the scabbard on his battle jacket and Angie held out her wrists to him, and he cut the bonds.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go help Ash and kill Nakamura all over again!”

TC smiled. “I’d rather be Angie’s friend than her enemy ... the little tiger.” He thought to himself but said nothing.

Down on Church Street, across from the doughnut shop, Leah, Olivia and Roxy had a perfect view of the rear of Nakamura’s club. For a few minutes the dark overcast lifted in the west. Sunlight bathed the buildings with a pale yellow-orange glow while the sun sank down towards the ocean. Soon the sun will be completely gone, and dusk will fall unless the cloud cover closes up again first, then it will be an earlier night and completely dark here in the side road.

The back side of the nightclub building was just a featureless dark spot with the bright glow from the sinking sun.

“Damn! This light is blocking out the building’s back side. It’s all just a dark shadow...” Leah complained.

“Looks like there’s light up on the fourth floor. Some windows have light shining through,” Olivia remarked.

“Ooo! I just hate to sit and wait here while the action is playing out just behind those brick walls...” Nadia expressed her frustration.

“Well, I don’t need all three of you to babysit me...” Roxy observed.

“Now don’t you go and entice these two to go and join in the fun, Roxy! Just now Ash will paddle my bottom for disobeying his orders.” Nadia remarked. “And what is worse, when I get home Dave might do the same!”

“The guys whip your bottoms for not following orders!” a shocked Roxy exclaimed.

“Nah, just a figure of speech. The guys love us to pieces and will never do us harm,” Nadia corrected. “Although, I think Angie said something about Ash promising her a belting for misbehaving, but he never got around to it. And she was ready to submit to it! Something in the line of sex play.” Giggle.

“Those two, I just wish they would hook up now and get married!” Olivia chuckled.

“Yeah, they’ve been practising ‘honeymoon’ for the last five years. I think it’s time they do get married, before the next little ‘pilot-to-be’ gets to be the flower girl at their wedding!” Leah said and reached for a packet of cigarettes.

“She’s not using contraceptives?” Roxy asked.

“I think she does, but I’m not going to ask her!” Nadia said.

“Quiet you guys. Look!” Olivia said. “There! On the fire escape stairs!”

All eyes turned towards the fire escape where two dark figures just broke the skyline in the fading sunlight.

“Who?” Roxy asked.

“Can’t make it out, but one looks like Mai-Loan...”

“Darya’s got a monster scope on the sniper gun of hers. Let me get it,” Nadia said, and reached for a gun-case on the back seat of the SUV.

“It looks like he’s dragging Mai-Loan up to the roof!” Roxy exclaimed.

“Quiet now! Let me confirm...” Nadia exclaimed as she got out of the SUV with the Barrett .338 Norma Magnum in her hand.

She got out of the left side of the SUV, extended the gun’s bipod legs and set it down on the roof of the SUV. She brought the gun stock to her shoulder and sighted through the scope.

Mai-Loan and a Japanese looking guy were ascending the steel fire escape stairs towards the roof of the building. It looked like the guy was dragging her with one hand and had a gun in his other.

“Give me a clip!” Nadia hissed, and the next moment Roxy’s small hand reached out the window with a ten-shot magazine. Nadia grabbed the clip and inserted it into the Barrett, flicked the safety off and worked the charging handle. A cartridge slotted smoothly into the breech.

Nadia felt calm and controlled. She took a breath and sighted on the figures on the platform just before the roof of the building. Her focus was fully on the figures and calculating the distance and angle. Subconsciously she felt the slight breeze on her right cheek. The wind was slight and from the right, not a factor in the distance the projectile had to go. She centred the crosshairs on the Japanese guy and waited on an opportunity for a clear shot.

Somehow, she was back in Turkey, back in the war zone. She even smelled the cordite and heard the mortar shells screaming overhead. She blocked everything out and focused on her target, taking up the first pressure on the rifle trigger.

“Now motherfucker! Just stand still long enough ... That’s it ... Turn to me...” Nadia said to herself and inhaled, holding her breath...

I took the fire escape stairs two at a time, with Darya and Boomer close on my heels. From above, I could hear Nakamura’s foot fall slam down on the steel stairs, as he tried to get to the roof. Why the hell do all fleeing criminals go up to roofs of buildings, instead of going down and away from the crime scene? This is reality, not a Hollywood movie. Dammit!

An orange spark flashed next to me on the railing of the steel fire escape, and the whining of a ricochet screamed in my ears. The pop of the shot being fired coming almost simultaneously. Daiki was taking pot-shots at us from up top.

I resisted the impulse to fire back. I could hit Mai-Loan. I just carried on climbing. Behind me, Boomer uttered some unprintable word as the ricochet went past him.

I rounded the bend in the stairway and saw Nakamura pushing Mai-Loan over the low parapet of the flat top roof. She stumbled over the parapet and disappeared from view. Daiki looked back and saw me coming up the short way towards him. He turned sideways and brought up his gun to level it at me.

“That’s it, you asshole!” Nadia said and took the second pressure on the trigger of the .338 Barrett Norma Magnum. Without warning the rifle recoiled back into her shoulder, and the .338 projectile spewed out the barrel of the gun on its flight of no return towards the dark figure of Daiki on the top of the stairs.

Covering the distance in milliseconds, the projectile slammed into Daiki, hitting him, shattering his upper arm bone, entering just under his armpit, ripping the glenohumeral joint apart, and boring a path through his shoulder bone, disintegrating the bone and busting out of his shoulder blade, ripping a hole the size of a tennis-ball out of his back.

Nadia exhaled her breath, worked the bolt of the rifle to load another round, and the spent .416 Rigby cartridge brass casing clattered onto the pavement beside her.

“Weź to, dupku!” she spat in Polish. (Take that, you asshole!) Leah and Olivia giggled.

Roxy just sat silently with her eyes closed, her hands clasped in fists in her lap. This was a strange crowd to hang out with. One moment, adorable loveable bundles of giggles and laughs, the next moment deadly wicked witches with death in their eyes. What the hell did she sign up for?

I brought up my own MP7 to sight at Daiki. I could just have point-and-sprayed him from my hip, but before I could depress the trigger, his arm flew up in the air, and his gun came clattering down the steel stairs towards me. A foggy mist spewed out from his shoulder, and he twisted, doubled over and went over the parapet onto the flat top roof of the building, disappearing out of view.

“Nice shooting, my sister! Even, if it’s with MY toys...” Darya cheered behind me. At that moment I realised that Nadia had taken a shot at Daiki and must have hit him. Then I ran up the last of the stairs to the landing at the top, gun at the ready, not knowing what I’d find.

“Come on, Daddy-oh, Lets go get Mai-Loan!” Darya called as she raced past me up the stairs, that deadly .50 Desert Eagle AE, firmly clasped in her hands.

I dashed up the stairs behind her and stumbled over the parapet. Darya was helping Mai-Loan up on her feet. It looked like Mai-Loan was coming out of whatever stupor she was in. Still a little unsteady on her feet but responding to her surroundings.

Daiki Nakamura was a few metres away, on his knees, and trying to support himself with his left hand and arm. He was bleeding like a slaughtered pig.

As I approached him, he looked up at me, tried to get up unsteadily on his feet, but failed and dropped back down.

I stopped and looked at Daiki. He was done for, so I turned and went back to where Darya was supporting Mai-Loan. Boomer was a few paces away and stood speaking rapidly into his radio,

“Miss Angie is safe and uninjured. The Major is taking her down to the cars,” He called to me.

“Great!” I responded. “And Mai-Loan looks like she’s uninjured as well.”

I became aware of a movement behind me and turned just in time as Daiki came stumbling on towards me with a long combat type knife held over his head in his left hand. His eyes were bloodshot and there was murder on his deluded mind. I stepped out of his way and turned to face him.

Daiki realised too late that he missed me and turned his head in my direction, not checking his forward rush. He ran into the knee-high parapet and lost his balance. His legs stopped, but his upper body careered on. I watched in horror as he pitched over the parapet and plummeted straight down.

From five stories up I heard the sickening thud as Daiki’s body hit the cement pavement down below. I knew it was not necessary to go look, but I did anyway.

I peered over the edge of the roof and down below I saw the bloody mess that was Daiki. It looked like he went head first into the pavement. From over the road three figures came towards where Daiki’s remains were on the pavement.

“Building secure! All mission objectives accomplished! Withdraw to the vehicles!” TC’s voice came over the radio. I strode to the fire escape stairway. Darya and Mai-Loan, followed by Boomer, were converging on me.

“Thank you, Ash...” Mai-Loan said softly as she and Darya came up to me. “Bloody careless of me ... I was so...”