Chapter Thirteen
The Iceman
It was a hard four days on both Anna and I. She hardly slept at all and well I rarely slept much anyway. We were in Prague and waiting for night to come on the fourth day. Anna had insisted on coming, but I had made it clear that she would remain a safe distance from the action.
Anna had been helping me dress for the last hour in our room. Chantry had done his part to see that I survived the coming fight. I was wearing several million dollars worth of the most cutting-edge protective gear ever made and no one would have ever known it.
The body armor went on in skins that were repeated over and over, but despite the many paper thin layers of armor I still had a complete range of motion and as the operative who had dropped the armor off had said, ‘It breathed like Egyptian cotton’.
I just hoped I got to keep it after this, because it was already making me feel better about my chances of survival.
I checked myself in the mirror and tugged on the white suit coat a little, “That should do it don’t you think, Anna?”
My eyes shifted to her weary face and she held out the white fedora hat and I took it from her. It was heavy for a hat, but just my style. I put it on at a slight angle the way I liked it.
“How do I look?”
“Like my white knight in shining armor.” She responded and I smiled glancing back at her.
She wasn’t smiling though and my smile fell off my face as I could read what she was feeling. I hugged her to me and her arms squeezed tightly around me.
“I love Kevin and I love you! I want you both!” She said crying into my chest.
I kissed the top of her head as my hands rubbed her back, “And God willingly you shall have us both. Now stop this crying. Soon you’ll have both of us and then we are going to go away for a very long vacation somewhere warm.”
“You promise?”
“I promise! Now I have to go Anna. You’ll be able to see when they get Kevin from the control room from their head cams.”
She nodded, but I had to practically pry her arms off of me. She let go suddenly and grabbed my face and we kissed for a long moment.
Her eyes were stormy as she drew back, “Now you come back to me Nikolai Gravitausky!”
“Yes Mrs. Gravitausky.”
And then I stepped away and out the door to make my way down the hall.
Anna stood in the doorway and watched her husband go.
“Oh God why does this have to be like this?” She whispered, as she felt cold fingers of icy dread squeeze around her heart as she watched her lover disappear down the hall.
Maria stepped out of her room poised on top of the stiletto heels that the long plain ordinary trench coat failed to hide. She clicked her way up to Anna and shared her view of Tyre’s departing back for a moment before she reached out her hand and squeezed Anna’s shoulder.
Anna looked over at her not bothering to wipe the tears off her face.
Maria’s face gentled in a way most people never saw, “Ever seen your man in action honey? I mean real action.”
Anna shook her head, “No, not really, I guess.” Anna said in response.
“Well, let me tell you, it’s something to see! Did he ever tell you how he came to join the agency?” Maria asked.
“If you mean about Chantry shooting him and then nursing him back to life then, yes, he did.”
Maria looked back at the departing Tyre for a moment, “Chantry once told me that hunting down Tyre was the hardest and most dangerous endeavor he had ever encountered in his life. Your man eats entire drug cartels for breakfast and while many men couldn’t take down a rave hall packed with doped out gun rockers, he can! We call him the Iceman. Me and my girls will be there to make sure he doesn’t get shot in the back, while he’s taking out the trash. He’ll come back Anna.” Maria said, as she squeezed Anna’s shoulder once more and then moved off down the hall after Tyre.
“Maria.”
Maria stopped and turned back to Anna her face inquiringly curious.
“Come back yourself Maria!” Anna said.
Maria’s white teeth showed in a smile of acknowledgment at Anna’s caring for her.
Out of sudden curiosity Anna asked, “What do they call you when you’re not around?”
One of Maria’s dark eyebrows rose and her smile deepened, “I believe the term Ice Queen has been applied to me a few times.”
She turned back around and was soon gone. Later Anna would go to the mobile control room that the agency had set up, but for now she would pray.
I stepped into the van that would take us to the rave hall. It was about 11 o’clock and things would be heating up in the rave hall by now. I heard a whistle before I saw its origin. It was Galloway.
He came up shaking his head with his usual goofy grin in place as his eyes took in my suit. He pulled one flap of my coat back to the side and glanced around to my back under the coat.
He whistled through his teeth again, “Whooee! You take the expression ‘dressed to kill’ to new levels little buddy!”
I positively hated it when he referred to me as ‘little buddy’, but I never let him know it because it would only inspire him to use it more often than he already did.
Chantry looked me over approvingly, “Well here’s to hoping that this new experimental and might I add highly expensive fabric, is all it’s cracked up to be! Don’t get it dirty!”
He finished with a chuckle and I barely avoided the childish gesture of rolling my eyes.
“Oh Tyre? Little buddy?”
Galloway was pestering me about something and I reluctantly turned back to him, “Yes?”
Galloway launched right into his spiel the picture of exuberance, “We all heard about how your house exploded in a volcano and oh by the way what a cool location! Way cooler than mine I have to admit! But anyway hearing all about that and given your stellar past of agent excellence I thought a song might be in order.”
Oh no!
Came the silent dread filled thought as I heard his words.
“Now relax Tyre it’s not like the last one, which I admit was a bit cheesy and you’ll be happy about something else to!”
“Will I?” I asked with my tone expressing no optimism whatsoever.
“It’s not a country song this time.”
I waited for it.
“It’s more of a hard rock kind of power ballad song, if you know what I mean.”
I groaned and turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm.
He held up a flash drive triumphantly, “I just got the file back! A buddy of mine in that vein of music did a quickie for me to get some basic lyrics hammered out. It’s still not quite polished given the rush, but I think it’ll do!”
“Do what?” I exclaimed, but Galloway was lost in the process of plugging the drive in and playing whatever horrible monstrosity had been concocted upon it.
He proved that he’d heard me though when he said, “Why so you can have a theme song playing to go along with your Saturday Night Fever impersonation.”
“Theme song! Are you serious Galloway?” I exploded, but the song was already playing with deafening cadence within the tight confines of the van.
I cringed as the notes played out.
Finally it was over and I was about to let Galloway have it when Chantry said, “You know that’s actually not that bad given the field of music that it belongs to.”
Galloway positively beamed with pride at what he took as, rarely given, high praise. Shocked beyond words I turned on Chantry as I fought to frame the excoriating words I felt rising up in me in response to the embarrassing song.
“Now Tyre you have to admit that this is one of Galloway’s finer musical composing’s and having a theme song to change the beat of the place up some might not be such a bad idea.”
“You call that chaotic corny screeching, music? For the love of the arts don’t call it that!” I fairly shouted out.
Chantry shrugged as a smile played across his face, “Music can be different things to different people.”
He half turned to a widely grinning Temple Boone, who sat at the van’s controls.
“Patch the song into the sound system once Tyre’s in action.” Chantry said authoritatively.
I turned back to Galloway and with dark intent I said, “I’m going to make you regret this many times over Galloway!”
Galloway was wiping tears of mirth away from his eyes as he responded, “I don’t care what you do! This is going to be absolutely priceless!”
I gritted my teeth and stalked out of the van feeling completely embarrassed and I hated to be embarrassed. It made me so angry!
The moment Tyre was gone from the van Galloway and Temples jovial faces turned completely serious as their heads swiveled to Chantry who was still smiling.
Temple asked Chantry, “Do you think he bought it?”
Chantry nodded, “Oh I would say so. He’s mad as ever right now at the prospect of being embarrassed in front of so many fellow agents, which he desires respect from, more than anyone else.”
Galloway looking puzzled asked, “Tell me why are we trying to make him mad?”
Chantry responded, “Anger makes most men sloppy and overreach themselves, because of the passionate state of mind they are in, but Tyre is different. He was born in a hell on earth place and it was anger that he fed on to survive.
It was anger that he embraced in order to become the coldhearted killer that he was as a young man. Since doing good deeds and meeting the love of his life much of that foundational anger has left him. I thank God for that, but tonight he needs to be cold, merciless and as deadly as ever. In short he needs to be angry.”
Temple looked back at the monitors in front of them. He had hijacked all the security camera feeds from the rave nightclub. The screens showed the club packed tight with the young bodies of mostly teenagers and young twentysomethings.
The massed youth twisted and ground against each other to the tune of strobe lights their doped out senses lost in the euphoria of the wantonness of their actions. Temple shook his head as he viewed the packed house, “God forgive us!”
“Amen.” Chantry said quietly in response.
Galloway’s lips quirked up slightly, “Catchy tune anyway. Wish I had written it.” He said as he listened to the theme song replay through a headset he’d put on.
It was after one o’clock when I crossed the litter strewn street towards the innocuous looking door of the nightclub. Maria and her team were already inside and everything was set. I had no doubt that they would come in handy, but in some ways I would be alone in the packed club.
Even now Flint and several other agents were infiltrating into the Iron Wills headquarters building, which was directly adjoined to the nightclub. I strode past the tattooed, barely clad, youth standing in line waiting to get inside.
The muscle bound bouncer grasped my arm hard. I let my eyes trace up the restraining hand to directly stare into the brute’s eyes. He must not have liked something he saw there because he let go, as if his hold on me had become too hot to handle any longer.
“Have a pleasant night, Sir.”
I gave him my most chilling smile as I tipped the corner of my hat to him. He stepped back as I moved past him into the nightclub.
A tattooed floozy gave me an interested go over before indicating that I had to pass through a body scanner, which I complied with. Her lascivious eyes flew from me to her screen as it beeped out at her warningly. I watched her eyes grow wide with shock, as she turned from the screen to gaze up at me.
I held up one finger to my lips, “Shhhh!”
She screamed.
Oh well it had been worth a shot. Two enforcers from opposite corners ahead stepped toward us as their hands reached inside their jackets. My favored pistols slipped into my hands as I cross drawled them out from my shoulder harnesses under the coat.
They each puffed once their silencers among the quietest available on the black market. As the two men fell I have turned and one gun puffed again at the man who had stepped out from a security booth in the wall near the door.
Turning back to the petrified woman cowering down in her seat beside me, I shook my head as if to say, “Should’ve been quiet.”
I tipped my hat up to look at the security camera that was focused in on me. I put a bullet square into the little red flashing light. Now the enemy would both know that I was here and who I was, but more importantly Flint now had the go-ahead to start busting doors down in search of Kevin, because the party was coming to me.
I exited the short hall before me and looked down the steps into the packed rave hall below. The place had once been a warehouse, but it had been converted into this flashing den of iniquity to help feed the excesses of a generation gone wrong and eager to spend their stolen grandma’s cash.
The hall stretched out before me from the base of the steps down to the dance floor. The sides were decked out with dancer pads for exotic dancers, who flexed to the insane beat of some tune gone wrong. Back into the sides were lounges where other activities were done and all the innocence of youth was lost.
Lights flashed in a dizzying array throughout the hall in an epileptic’s nightmare fantasy of hell. If I ever caught a child of mine in such a place as this I’d throw them in their room and lock the door and throw the key away.
No child belonged in such a place of wanton abuse and yet the place was packed full of them. Had parents ceased to care or had wickedness grown so much as to reap such an unholy harvesting of young lives that had decided it was better to run away and play than to work and have joy?
A door burst open halfway up the side of the old warehouse wall and men with guns spilled out onto the catwalk becoming the first of many. I opened up on them as I began to make my way down the steps to the dance floor below.
Some of them managed to get off some shots, but they were ill aimed. I holstered my empty pistols as I reached the floor. I pulled out a slim assault rifle that was strapped to a weapon harness on my back under the coat I wore.
The loud gunshots of the men from the catwalk had dimly registered on the youth and now some of them near to me gazed at me, befuddled as to what was going on. I pulled the trigger of my rifle and a spray of bullets shot into the air towards the ceiling of the place.
Come on, stupid kids, get out of here! Instead the kids actually cheered! They were so high and tripped out on drugs and alcohol that they thought this was some kind of spectacle put on for their entertainment! Bullets hammered off the stairs behind me. Well so be it then. I moved into the packed crowd that parted energetically before me.
The sound of the crazed heated music that pervaded the place abruptly stopped. I gritted my teeth as I darkly acknowledged to myself what was to come next. Galloway’s awful twisted rendition of what he thought to be music blared forth into the rave hall with loud enough intensity to be heard by all for several miles.
“Black rock, ice and snow in a land of volcanoes!”
The floor bouncers were shoving their way through the packed house to get to me. Unlike the armed men in the galleries above the floor, the bouncers didn’t have guns for fear of some whacked out over sexed kid making a grab for one and going postal on everyone in a drug induced haze.
They did have knives and batons though. If this was how they wanted to play it was fine by me. I could do knives to. I slung the rifle over my shoulder even as a knife slipped out into my left hand from up my sleeve.
I pulled a collapsing baton from my waistband and with a flick of the wrist the baton snapped out to full extension as a bouncer leaped from the crowd at me. His wild swinging baton met mine in an overhead smash even as my knife plunged deeply three times. As the man slumped away I continued my progression on into the hall as a way opened up before me.
“Molten lava sizzling over bare black rock!”
At first the crowd hadn’t been sure what to make of the new beat that was in English, but now they swung right back into their former groove without a hitch as their voices raised uproariously in approval, as they watched the scene of my attack unfold on multiple jumbotrons situated throughout the room.
I even had spotlights tracing my path through the shifting maze of packed sweaty bodies. I came to a spot directed as I was by the crowd’s shifting movements, where the floor was lit up in a way reminiscent of the disco era.
I wasn’t a fan of the 70’s. There just hadn’t been practically any good movies made during that time period in my opinion. Twenty some bouncers crowded at the edges of the lit up space and I could see that they only hesitated for fear of me using a gun on them if they separated away from the shielding influences of the surrounding crowd.
I left the gun where it was on my back and boldly stepped into the space, as the floor rippled in an array of colored patterns designed to drive dancers wild in their rhythmic movements.
“Icy winds begin to blow and molten lava cools as in comes the man from the land of ice!”
The bouncers came at me then in a bulrush of motion intent on pounding me into a bloody pulp on the psychedelic colored light grid of the floor beneath us.
I was no stranger to mobs. Growing up as a kid in the Russian slums we kids were little better than packs of roving dogs in search of scraps of food to eat.
I had been both a victim of such mob attacks as well as a participant. The same rule applied which either side you were on and that was, anything goes. The name of the game was survival after all.
“He’s come to break your bones, because you took one of his own!”
I picked out a big mean looking ruffian and headed straight at him for several reasons. He looked like the big he-bull of the group. Take him out and the confidence of the others would dim no matter how many they outnumbered me by. Being the capable looking monster type that he was it was also a sure bet that those near him would hold back a little from him in deference to his powerful capabilities, which could give me the opening I needed to take him out without worrying about interference by the others.
He swung at my head ponderously and I ducked under the swing, my knife plunging deep. He was already dead he just didn’t know it yet. I swung around him and propelled myself upwards with my momentum in a heave of effort to his shoulders. With a heaved push off of his head I bolted up to my feet on his shoulders, even as he began to topple over forward. I aided his final journey to the floor by pushing off in a backward somersault.
The mob reacted in stunned confusion. Their leader was dead and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. It was time to divide and conquer. Five more fell bleeding before the group began to reassemble as a fighting unit.
“Explosions!”
They thought they had me once and a pile up ensued, but I slipped out from it to the side and began to hack away at them as they still fought each other within the pileup.
The survivors broke away, their breath coming hard to them. Over half their number were gone permanently and fearful doubt was plainly evident in their shaken faces.
They had thought to make short work of me, but instead I was making short work of them.
“Hot ash fills the sky, but where will you hide from the man with the gray blue eyes!”
My suit was no longer spotless white, but instead it was stained crimson with blood, their blood. The chanting ring formed about us by the godless youth as they soaked in the sight of the bloodsport, even as they cried out for more reminded one of how the Roman citizens in Nero’s time had cried out for more as they watched the Christians being fed to the lions.
My faith in God had become a real thing and I now identified myself as a believer in His Son, but in this arena I was the lion as my enemies sought now not to be devoured by my fury.
“Death in his ice chipped eyes, with fire in his hand he’s the Iceman!”
I took out two more in a fast attack and the remaining four combatants fled into the crowd leaving the body strewn dance floor behind. Shots smashed into my back bruising my bones and pummeling my organs as the bullets connected with the armor of my clothes that danced and shimmied as they absorbed the energy of the shots.
I wasn’t dead, but it was painful to be alive! Some coward had found a gun. I turned and found a man my own height clutching a pistol in a shaking clasp.
He stared at me in terror and I acknowledged that I must look a fright, drenched as I was in the blood of other men.
What would his reaction be I wondered if he could but glimpse a sight of the battles from antiquities’ past where men had fought each other for days in pools of blood waist deep in height.
“He seeks no gain, but he’s come to deal out the pain!”
The man wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer I acknowledged as he fell over backward with my knife buried to the hilt within his heart, as his fingers still briefly fumbled with the pistol that had jammed on him.
I stooped to pick up my hat from where it had fallen earlier, as I slung my rifle free again. It was time for guns again, apparently. That was okay by me. I was flexible.
“Explosions!”
Maria’s thigh muscles had begun to ache from where they gripped the poll holding her above the heads of the surrounding crowd that paid her no attention. She didn’t mind. Everyone’s attention was rooted on the main show on center stage, which suited her purposes precisely.
All the boys that had gazed at her in lustful wonder the past few hours now stood staring slack-jawed at the big screens as they saw what being a real man was all about. Tyre certainly was putting on a show for them to the tune of that awful song she had to acknowledge.
“It’s time for you to die and be consumed by the volcano’s fire!”
Maria cradled the tiny pistol in her hand that had been hidden in her up swept hair all evening. It was small, but accurate enough. She had taken out seventeen potential shooters with shots to the head, as Tyre had enacted his own version of the paso doble on the central dance floor Rambo style.
Tyre was clear of the open exposure of the lit up floor now and he had his guns back in action. He’d be okay alone, for a while. Her eyes focused in on a man by the bar closest to her.
She let her clasp on the stripper pole relax as she slid down gracefully to the stage. Her bare feet touched the carpet and she made her way off of the stage to the ground floor. Her high heels had gone by the wayside as she had needed the bullets housed within each heel.
She made her way toward the bar. The stupid flashing lights and the place in general, especially the song were beginning to give her a headache.
“Ashes you will be, after the Iceman visits thee!”
The man at the bar reached up with a hand toward his ear, but halted as he felt the muzzle of the small pistol press against his throat.
His eyes drifted over to Maria’s coldly smiling face, “Allow me.” She said in a falsely seductive tone.
She reached up to his ear and pulled the ear bud out of it and laid it on the bar. Picking up a shot glass laying there she brutally smashed the bud into splintered debris with the butt end of the glass.
The man’s eyes completely serious drifted back to her as she shook her head, “This just ain’t your show CIA man. Understand?”
He nodded not doubting what he saw in her eyes.
She smiled coldly again, “Good boy! Now you just relax here and enjoy the show.”
She turned away and he stared after her unable to look away from what her mother had given to her in full measure.
She could have been the top centerfold for any man’s magazine, but the prospect of that had never appealed to Maria. She liked to be in control too much to allow herself to be subjugated like that and besides she had no interest in men.
She only took advantage of her beauty with men as a means of controlling them and as a means of motivating them to do her bidding. She had to admit even to herself that she was a very cold self-centered woman.
Somebody else most definitely had been at work in the place. There were bodies where I had not yet been before. Maria and her team were being as savage as I was it would appear and I had to admit that I was grateful for the help.
This charade couldn’t go on much longer before it would be the time to get the heck out of here!
A voice in my ear spoke and I recognized it as Flint, “Tyre the boys not here! As far as I can make out there holding him somewhere in the dance hall itself!”
My mind seized up on the knowledge that they hadn’t found Kevin yet. Being held here? I spun around taking in the mad scene of the rave hall.
Where?
I spun back to where I had been headed during my entire sojourn across the hall, which was the stage area at the opposite side of the old warehouse.
What set the upraised stage area apart and made it stand out was its peculiar oddity from the rest of the hall or anything I had ever seen before.
A mammoth fish tank rose up behind the stage to tower over it. Going with the hard edge theme of the place the wall of the aquarium that formed the backdrop of the stage was almost entirely populated by sharks.
It had to be there!
I climbed the stairs two at a time towards the stage as shots hammered off the stairs all around me even as a few shots landed with painful impact. It was an agony to keep moving and it was only a matter of time before a lucky shot found my head and took me out for good.
It was a pity that they didn’t make stylish body armor for the head, at least I didn’t think they did. I cleared the top of the stairs and stopped as a solid wall of at least thirty or so guns pointed at me from as many henchmen, who were ringed across the front of the aquarium’s glass wall.
There were two side doors to either side of the aquarium, which is where they must’ve come from and now they had me dead to rights. I didn’t have any more bullets left anyway.
They didn’t fire as they were confident in that they finally had me. I dropped my rifle and with a rueful smile I took off my hat to await the inevitable. They weren’t going to be nice to me for crashing their house like this.
I turned to see that the surviving gunmen from the crowd side were making their way up the stairs below me. I turned back to those coming from the stage side, but as I did so I let the hat spin from my hands like a frisbee. It sailed over the heads of the approaching men to thunk heavily into the aquarium’s glass wall as the steel brim of the hat bit into the glass.
It hung there poised in the air and the approaching men, who had stopped looked back to me from the stuck hat as the absurd words of the song trailed out for what must be the third or fourth time now through the crummy lyrics, “……he’s the Iceman!”
The approaching men snickered and I shrugged. As the hard rocker singer in the background, who sounded as if he’d had a few too many cigarettes in his time, fought his way into his final high pitched screech of “Explosions!” there really was an explosion!
I ducked to the floor and grabbed for the rifle. Glass shards shot off everywhere as the hat exploded and in the midst of the delusion of water spilling out of the shattered aquarium onto the stage screams rang out.
I could well imagine why, but my focus was on my rifle. I quickly jammed half its length into a slot on the stage floor and then slipped an arm through its strap. I had barely just grasped onto it securely when the wave of water hit me. If it hadn’t been for my anchor and the strap around me I would have been swept away like the rest of the men on the stage were.
A six foot long tiger shark shot by me and made a snap at my legs, which he thankfully missed. Others weren’t so lucky though