Patriots & Tyrants (11 page)

On a rectangular table in the center of the room, drinks and plates were set about indicating several people had been seated there. Sweeping over the room as he moved towards the staircase, he spotted another body, a man bearing the same chef style clothing as the deceased woman in the kitchen and killed with some kind of trauma to the back between his shoulder blades. Bending down, Declan felt for a pulse and spotted the foot of another body on the other side of the table. Feeling no pulse, he moved to the other body. A bespectacled man of obvious Jewish decent lay flat on his back, a clear gunshot wound to his shoulder and another to his abdomen. The man's eyes opened and closed slowly, his breathing shallow.

"Hold on," Declan said believing him to be a member of Kafni's party. "I'll get you some help. Where did they take Kafni?"

The man's eyes moved towards the staircase and Declan nodded. Pulling a heavy knit napkin from the table, he rolled it up and placed it over the man's abdomen wound and secured it with his hands. "Keep pressure on it."

Standing upright, he swept around the room again before moving to the staircase and pointing his pistol up the steps. A white interior door stood ajar at the top. Taking the steps carefully, he listened intently, hearing nothing. A halogen light flickered in the room above. Arriving at the door, he pushed it open and cleared the room in a half circle. The room's walls were brick and storage shelves constructed of two-by-fours lined the walls holding cans of vegetables and other ingredients. A long hallway extended off the room and lead to another staircase, halfway down the hall, was another room with its door opened wide. Stepping fully into the room with his eyes on the door in the hallway, Declan dove to the floor as a man leaned out of the doorway with a machine pistol and opened fire. Bullets tore into the walls above as Declan lay covered by the shelving, vegetable juice pouring onto him from the cans on the shelves as they were opened with bullets. The gunfire stopped with a recognizable clicking, signifying the man had run out of ammo. Declan stood and rushed down the hallway, his eyes on the doorway and keeping his back pressed against the wall. Moving silently, he stopped at the entrance to the door and waited. Listening to the action in the room, he heard the man inside inserting a new magazine into the weapon and chambering it. The barrel of a long suppressor protruded suddenly from the door as the man went to lean out and fire again. Declan dropped his pistol and grabbed the weapon, pulling the man out of the room and throwing him against the opposite wall. Advancing on him before he had time to recover, Declan threw two front kicks, striking the man first in the stomach and then in the head, throwing him forcefully against the wall again before he landed on the floor with a thud. Clearing the doorway behind him with a glance, Declan reached down as the man struggled to get up, grabbed his head and twisted. The man's body fell limply to the floor.

Retrieving his pistol from the floor, he cleared the room the man had been hiding in and moved along the hallway. A short set of stairs stood at the end of the hall leading to a landing before hair-pining and leading to the third floor. At the base of the stairs, Declan leaned over and looked upwards to the third floor entrance. Seeing no one, he climbed the steps backwards to the landing and looked closer.

At the top of the stairs was a clean white room with vaulted ceilings, a sofa, loveseat, coffee tables and a television. Clearly the owners of the restaurant lived in the building and this was the first floor of their house. Beyond the living room, a waist high wall separated it from a modern looking kitchen area and a small breakfast nook. Between the breakfast nook and the kitchen another long hallway stretched towards a staircase leading to the fourth floor. Three doorways opened off of the hallway. As Declan climbed the steps, a man jumped up from behind the kitchen counter aiming a pistol. Declan moved forward firing three times in response and the man fell back against the refrigerator before sliding to the floor.

"Stop now!" a voice called from one of the rooms off the hallway. "I will kill them all!"

Declan watched as a man leaned out into the hall holding a terrified little girl in his arms as a human shield. In his right hand, he held a grenade, his thumb on the spoon. "I will throw it in there and they will all die!" he screamed.

Declan lowered his pistol.

"What is going on down there?" a voice called down from the fourth floor.

"We have an intruder!" the man holding the grenade yelled.

The sound of footsteps coming down the fourth floor stairs at the end of the hall preceded the appearance of a man at the end of the hall. Declan recognized him immediately as the older man who had been in charge on the boat in Provincetown.
Hashemi.
The older Palestinian gazed down the hallway at Declan with a look of confusion. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Saint Malachy's revenge," Declan answered.

"You are not police," Hashemi said picking up Declan's accent. "Throw down your weapon or the children die."

Declan slid his pistol into the holster on his belt.

"Not good enough," Hashemi said. "On the floor, now!"

Unwilling to let what he assumed were Kafni's children die and seeing no other options, Declan removed the pistol from its holster and bent down, placing it on the laminated wood flooring. Standing, he looked at Hashemi with his hands open and raised to shoulder level.

"Put the girl down and secure him to the bannister on the stairway with the wrist ties." Hashemi ordered the gunman. "We'll deal with him and the family after Deni has finished the Jew and his wife."

The gunman set the frightened girl down and pushed her gently back into the room before replacing the pin and dropping the grenade into his coat pocket. Hashemi withdrew a pistol from behind his back and held it at his side, ready to fire if Declan attempted to resist. The gunman sauntered down the hallway with an amused smile. As he drew closer, he said, "After they're done with the Jew. I'm going to kill you myself."

Eying the man up and down, Declan caught a glimpse of a pistol grip under the man's coat as he walked forward, his jacket pulling back as he strode. As the man arrived in front of him, Declan locked eyes with him.

"Put your hands together," the man said as a look of paranoia spread across his face. Standing only two feet apart, the man could feel a threat in the air.

Declan lowered his hands, bringing them together with his left hand under his right. With a nervous sweat forming on his forehead the gunman pulled three black zip ties from his back pocket.

A blue and red alternating light began to flash in the window on the landing behind Hashemi, dancing off the walls of the brick buildings along the street beside the restaurant.

"The police are here!" Hashemi said looking over his shoulder as the LED lights from the patrol car on the street lit up the white walls around him. "Get it done already!"

With the gunman's attention momentarily focused on the flashing lights and his body obstructing Hashemi's view, Declan reached into his right sleeve, pulling the eight inch tactical knife from its hidden sheath and driving it upwards under the man's chin. The gunman's eyes went wide as the blade entered; momentarily unaware of what was happening to him. With his right hand, Declan pulled the pistol from the man's coat and aimed over his shoulder.

Hashemi realized what was happening and raised his own pistol as he backed up the stairs. Declan fired twice, the report of the unsuppressed pistol echoing down the hallway. Hashemi's right leg opened up and he screamed in pain as he fell onto his back, sliding down the four steps he'd managed to climb. Returning his attention to the gunman, Declan pulled the knife out of the man's neck and pushed him away. Choking on his own blood, the man stumbled backwards. Declan dropped the knife onto the floor and fired twice more at the gunman's chest.

As the gunman's body fell to the floor, Declan kept his aim tight, bringing his right hand up under the grip and firing again as Hashemi attempted to raise his weapon down the hall. A hole appeared in the Palestinian's shoulder followed rapidly by a red burst like the impact of a paintball. Dropping his gun as his arm became useless, Hashemi howled in agony, writhing on the steps. Declan moved forward, clearing the three rooms in the hallway. In the last room, five dark haired, brown eyed children stared up at him from the floor, each with their wrists and feet bound with black ties, but otherwise unharmed. Arriving at Hashemi's position, he looked down at the aged Palestinian. Hashemi quit moving and stared upwards, trying hard to hide the fear in his eyes. Declan fired once and the stairs behind Hashemi's head turned bright red as the Palestinian's head jerked backwards before falling still. The sound of the empty brass casing hitting the floor and rolling down the steps stopped and the third floor grew silent. Declan listened for any motion on the fourth floor above. With the sound of the gunshots moments before there was no way the Chechen didn't know someone was coming. The question was whether or not Abaddon Kafni and his wife were still alive.

With the pistol aimed, Declan turned and faced the fourth floor as he backed up the steps onto the landing. With the third floor obviously being used as living space, Declan wasn't surprised when the fourth floor was nothing but a grayish blue painted hallway with rooms off to each side, the doors made of wood and painted brown to match the baseboard that ran the length of the hall. An open window stood at the end of the hall, a white lace curtain blowing in the breeze. Like the floor below it, the ceiling at the beginning of the floor was vaulted, the roof made of skylight windows.

Suddenly glass shattered with a thunderous sound as one of the skylights fell to pieces, raining down onto the hardwood floors. Declan felt the bullet as it grazed his left shoulder tearing his jacket and lacerating the skin beneath. He darted up the steps and out of the view of the skylight windows as more shots erupted from the roof.

Stopping halfway along the hall, Declan removed his coat and let it fall to the floor. A U shaped canal bled on the side of his left arm, another inch to the left and the bullet would've entered his arm. He wiped the blood away as the gunshots stopped on the roof. Looking at the fourth floor entrance, he noticed none of bullets had entered the building. They'd been fired in another direction.

Removing the magazine from the grip of the Clock 19 he'd taken from the gunman downstairs, he counted the rounds as he rushed towards the end of the hallway where he hoped to find a way onto the roof. Someone had stopped the Chechen from getting the drop on him and as far as he knew, Abaddon Kafni and his wife were the only two on the roof that would have any interest in preventing his death.

At the end of the hall, a window leading onto the fire escape stood open. With the pistol aimed in front of him, Declan stepped out into the blustery Boston night and looked down at the alleyway he'd used to enter the restaurant. Behind him, a ladder led up to the roof. He climbed upwards and slowly looked over the edge of the roof with the pistol aimed.

The roof was flat, a rough concrete knee wall surrounding it and the floor was made of pea gravel. Three square air conditioners provided the only cover, their fans silent in the last remaining days of the New England winter. At the far end of the roof, a man stood holding a woman in front of him, the sleeves of his camouflage jacket visible as one of his arms was wrapped around her waist and the other placed over her shoulder and holding a semi-automatic pistol.

The Chechen's head came into view as he leaned around the woman to get a look at the ladder. He said something in a language Declan didn't understand and allowed spit to fall onto the shoulder of his hostage.

"Throw down your weapon or I'll kill her," the Chechen said switching to roughly accented English.

Declan proceeded onto the roof, keeping his pistol aimed and slowly stepping forward, the loose gravel shifting under his feet. Behind the Chechen, the pyramid shaped skylights leading onto the fourth floor landing stood, the one directly behind him broken.

"You do not think I'll do it?" the Chechen screamed. "I came a long way for this and you will not stop me!"

Sirens filled the air in the distance and Declan could hear the radio chatter from the police cruiser that had arrived to investigate the abandoned Lotus but had obviously heard the nearby gunshots.

"Take me, Deni," a weak voice said from somewhere to the Chechen's left. "I'm the one you want. Not her… not my wife."

"You really think your life alone is worth the life of my brother?" The Chechen said spitting in the direction of the voice. "I will cut off her head as you watch and hold it in front of you! Then you will die, Kafni!"

Suddenly the Chechen shoved his hostage forward and dove to his right, firing at Declan who also moved right behind one of the air conditioners.

"No! No!" Declan heard Kafni yell being unable to see that the Chechen hadn't been shooting at his wife. With the pistol aimed, Declan ducked around the side of the air conditioner looking for Kafni's wife. The woman sat sobbing on her knees, her hands on the ground for support. The Chechen leaned around an air conditioner on the other side of the roof and fired more shots. Declan took cover again as the bullets impacted the bulky unit he was hidden behind with a metallic clang.

"I want you to hear her gasps as I cut her head loose!" the Chechen screamed.

Declan knew he had to end this quick. With the police closing in the Chechen wouldn't be able to wait long enough to make good on his threats of decapitation. If he were going to kill Kafni, he'd have to do it with his gun. Moving to his right, Declan skirted around the air conditioning unit and looked down the edge of the roof. Leaned up against the concrete knee wall on the opposite side, he could see Abaddon Kafni, a bullet wound to the right side of his chest bleeding heavily and preventing him from moving. Kafni's eyes opened and flashed briefly with a hint of recognition as he saw Declan looking at him.