24. Judas Priest - Living After Midnight
"Ger'…" My hands blindly fumbled around until they finally got a good enough grip on the bastard's shoulders. "off!"
Not bothered by the weight, but definitely by the pain, I finally managed to roll the costumed corpse off my mangled face.
And now I lay in a narrow alley between two warehouses.
Lamps at the edges of the alley struggled to fight the darkness of the starless night, that hung over me.
The darkness, which was currently my only cover against the Triads, that had been swarming the entire area. Triads, that hovered around a ship proverbially right around the corner like flies on shit.
'Need to get…' I gasped, agony sprouting from my right leg, which I mistakenly used to roll on my side, pierced every straight thought.
"Oh man!" I didn't want to admit it, but a slight panic was starting to creep up in me. I needed to get away from here.
Using my left leg I struggled, it felt like an uphill battle, but I made it. I was on my hands and knees.
Every small victory mattered right now.
Trying and failing to take a calming breath, my eyes involuntarily landed on the still grinning visage of my assailant less than a foot away. Head twisted unnaturally far and hopefully down for good, I gingerly reached under his chin, and after some awkward fumbling finally managed to pull off the guy's mask, which I stuffed straightaway under my blood-drenched sweater.
Proof of my deed and an incentive for Mr. Tzu to help me understand who I just dealt with.
Groaning in exhaustion I wobbled for a second before I finally stood on my good leg, desperate not to put any weight on the busted one.
Balance getting steadier by the second I latched onto the first lucid thought in what felt like eons and reached into one of the pockets of my scuffed motorcycle pants, just for my fingertips to instantly brush over the broken remains of the Nokia brick, that I intended to use to plan my geta-away.
"Fantastic." I closed my eyes in annoyance and tried to breathe out my frustration in one heavy sigh, which did incidentally the complete opposite because calming down led me to the realization, that I would have to find a place to stay low and recover as much as possible here,…with a busted everything.
Another breath and I tried to fool myself into believing everything was just fine. One step after the other.
No problem.
…
So, what now?
First…
Still on one leg, while the other was awkwardly raised, I turned back and forth and let my gaze wander through the entire service alley for the first time, which made me aware of two things in particular.
The body at my feet and the door conveniently right next to the dumpster on which I left my mark so gracefully.
Eyes going back to both entrances of the alley to make sure I was still alone I thanked my lucky star for my years in gymnastics and bend down to pick up the now unmasked Asian man in his eye-catching silver outfit.
Weight no problem I awkwardly lifted the corpse until I was reasonably steady again just to toss his ass into the dumpster.
Wincing at the loud metallic rattle of the container I checked my surroundings one last time and hoppled to the door, now somewhat eager to get out of the open.
Hand going around the solid handle of the door I began to pray.
'No alarm! Please, no alarm!'
And used all my remaining strength to pull at the door in one explosive motion, which, thank God, was luckily enough to break the latch out of its rusty casing.
Almost falling backward given my lack of proper balance on one leg and the sudden movement I desperately clung to the handle, which I quickly used to pull myself into the darkened interior of the warehouse, that I got kicked off only minutes earlier.
Barely over the threshold, I closed the door behind me. Both hands free at least for now, one immediately reached behind my back for one of my knives while the other one found the wall next to the door to steady myself.
It was dark, but to my surprise and relief, it wasn't pitch black. Slowly but surely my eyes began to adjust, and my empty hand went from the wall to what felt like a stack of empty wooden pallets directly to my right, which I used to guide myself forward.
Only a couple of steps later and I could get a proper look at the interior of the warehouse. A row of big square windows at the wall towards the dock was, I reckoned, probably the reason why the streetlights dotted around outside could spill inside and give me an actual chance to get my bearings.
A couple of tall pallet racks filled with barrels and crates, which gave me zero hints regarding their contents given the darkness, a forklift, and rows of pallet jacks were parked directly to my right. All in all, perfectly normal, and more importantly deserted I noted as tension began to leave my system.
All right, head straight, priorities!
First aid; still felt like ground meat, but a work in progress; check!
Shelter?
Deserted workspace, some deserted offices in the back, I hoped as my gaze settled on a row of three doors in a concrete block, that screamed 'retroactively added'.
Shelter; a tentative check!
Now…?
Signaling, the big city survivalist in me supplied after an embarrassingly long pause.
I sincerely hoped my nose would fix itself soon because I had the feeling my head wasn't getting enough oxygen. Sighing and shaking myself out of the momentarily self-derision I carefully hopped across the warehouse floor when I spotted a little sign at the door to the right.
What's a minute or two, I thought and slightly adjusted my priorities.
Steering towards the toilet, by now reasonably certain to be alone in this building, I went straight in and was somewhat relieved to see no window because it meant I could switch on the little without having to worry too much about giving away my presence.
The first thing I did when I heard the door fall shut behind me was to simply lean against it like a wet sack. As pathetic as it was, in this very moment, this moderately clean bathroom felt like an impenetrable fortress, and it allowed me to…just let it go.
All the tension, the worry, the uneasiness bled out of me, and I was filled with, not exactly vigor, but a decently stable confidence.
The confidence, that granted me the strength to push off the door and towards the sink, where I was greeted by the sight of a blood-drenched mask in the little mirror above it.
Intent to get things over with for the night I ripped off the mask with a wince and promptly winced again when I got my first good look at my face.
The side of my face, that had felt like it was caved in looked better than I would have guessed.
'Is my healing getting better?' I couldn't help but wonder as I looked at the damage from different angles before my gaze finally settled on the bend thing that had once been my nose.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered under my breath; my voice still foreign to my own ears because of the blood blocking up my nasal passages.
As my fingers gingerly reached up and settled on what I hoped was a proper spot on the bridge of my nose, my gaze was on my mirror image, focused on the imaginary spot where I wanted my nose to end up in when I was finished.
'1…2…' In one powerful jerky motion I pushed and pressed the little appendage into the desired direction. In the span of a heartbeat, my eyes flew shut in pain and I nearly sank to my knees, but through the agony I heard and definitely felt a river of blood gush down the lower part of my face and into the sink.
'Oh god!' I groaned in misery.
*Squeak*
Sighing in bliss as I parked my ass in the office chair behind what I reckoned was the boss's desk, I finally managed to relax to a reasonable degree despite the situation.
The chair despite being surprisingly comfortable wasn't the reason for my decreasing stress level, however. The item, that immediately got my attention and managed to lift my spirits at a single glance was the beefy looking electric space heater right next to the desk, which I had already switched on to the highest setting when I stepped around the piece of furniture in the middle of the room.
One foot on the ground I awkwardly wheeled the chair around the corner of the desk and parked my busted one right in front of the heater's opening. Almost immediately, despite it still heating up, I could already feel my body start reacting to the warmth.
First, it was like ants on my skin, then, like worms burrowing in my flesh. It was not terribly unpleasant, but definitely something I would never get used to. Sensations aside, I knew it would take some time until I was back in something resembling proper shape, but all in all, things were taking a turn for the better.
Eyes closed and a sigh leaving my lips once more I reached under my sweater and pulled out the peculiar and highly expressional mask, which I lifted off my attacker, that found his final resting place in the dumpster just outside.
Funnily enough, the weird design left me highly unimpressed, which given my hometown should come as no surprise with all the characters running around. What had me bothered a bit, however, was the fact, that I never heard about a guy dressed as a silver monkey, a guy of obviously Asian descent, which I met in close proximity to a freighter belonging to the Shan Triad.
As unlikely as it was the guy could have been a globetrotting hero, that went after the same guy as me, and simply jumped to the wrong conclusion regarding myself on that roof.
'Bullshit.' I didn't even have to finish the thought to disregard it.
The guy worked for the Shan Triad.
But in what position? Was he one of the top-brass sent to make a difference?
Mask still in my grasp my eyes wandered over the desk and to the phone within reach, shrugging at the late hour, I reached for it and dialed the number I had made certain to remember by heart.
I was sure, at least eighty percent sure that is, that Mr. Tzu would appreciate the timely manner in which I passed on these new developments.
Numbers having been dialed I sat and waited.
And waited.
And then…I waited some more when suddenly…
"Wéi?" Not the voice of the female assistant answered but the gruff voice of a guy.
"Uhm, yeah, nǐ hǎo," Maybe a guard doing the late shift, I guessed and went on. "This is distribution speaking, is the boss available?" I asked hopefully in an equally vague but understandable manner.
"Who is there?" The man asked, annoyed and confused, and promptly dashed my hopes of a speedy process. Making sure to keep my sigh internal I decided to be as straightforward as possible.
"Listen, I'm the guy from the Dockyard Dogs, I just 'handled' a custumed crazy guy, that I think works for General Shan." I said in a matter-of-fact tone before I continued in a much more direct way. "Get me your boss!"
"Wait." The guy answered now similarly bristly, and I heard him through the phone get up and move before I heard a faint knock, followed by louder and more knocking, which itself was followed by rapid-fire Chinese, that wasn't quite a whisper.
"Good…morning, Mr. Panessa." Oh boy, the annoyance was barely disguised.
"Hello, Sir," I started respectfully, trying for some early damage control. "I was wondering if you were familiar with a man dressed as a silver monkey?"
"Silver Monkey." Ekin Tzu replied instantly, and I was about to scratch my head in confusion.
"Yeah, that's what I…"
"No, the man is called Silver Monkey," He cut me off, annoyance still evident.
'Oh.'
"He's known to be General Shan's most formidable bodyguard...when paid accordingly." He finished his explanation and suddenly I had a dawning realization of who just might be on the ship sitting less than a hundred meters away at the dock.
"I see, well, I killed him." There, I said it, no point in beating around the bush and the silence that followed was admittedly kinda funny.
"You," He began before he cut himself off and started again. "Would you please start at the beginning." Mr. Tzu asked of me and this time I didn't hear any annoyance, I didn't hear much infliction at all.
"Well, I was doing some prep work for the eventual green-light to move against the Shan Triad and ended up observing the freighter that arrived today." I started to explain and leaned back in the chair, the heater by now going full blast doing wonders for my health and mood.
"I noted an unusual number of men patrolling the vicinity and an upper-level guy boarding the ship when I was attacked on a nearby warehouse by this 'Silver Monkey'." I went on before I paused my little retelling.
Ekin Tzu had no idea what I was capable of, I remembered suddenly.
'No need to change that.' I decided quietly, the fewer people knew the safer I was after all, and my 'skills' felt like a family business anyway.
"So, I killed him." I finished eventually, the shrug obvious in my voice. There was absolutely no need to tell him, that the guy took me by surprise and kicked me off a roof, no need to reveal the damage I survived. Yup, Ekin Tzu really didn't need to know about my competency…or the lack of it.
"You…" Ekin Tzu began but now it was his turn to pause midsentence, perhaps finally managing to shake off the last cobwebs off the very late hour and taking the moment to collect his thoughts.
"When did this happen?" He asked instead and now I detected an urgency, that hadn't been there before.
"A few minutes ago, just threw him in a dumpster." I answered, curious where he was going with this.
"And the ship is still there?" He kept asking, and now a level of excitement joined the urgency from before.
"Yeah." Was my short reply, that made the man on the other end of the line exhale quietly, seemingly intent to get himself back under control.
Eyebrows raised at the somewhat hot and bothered reaction, I waited for the man to continue, and immediately wished he hadn't, because his next words were flat and sounded like they wouldn't allow any argument.
"I want you to go on that ship and kill General Shan."
"…" Left momentarily speechless, my eyes involuntarily went to my leg and my own bloody mask in my lap.
Silence, which quickly became awkward made me swallow quietly and furiously think of an intelligent response, that could convince Mr. Tzu to rethink his words.
What I managed, in the end, was sadly less than eloquent.
"I…ehr…what?"
"One Million Dollars." Seemingly unbothered by lack of eloquence Ekin Tzu carried on. "Bring me his head and you get One Million Dollars."
And yet again I was left speechless.
Awkward limp gone, I slowly walked through the pallet racks of the warehouse, desperate to spot something that might help me on my mission impossible.
I had absolutely no intention to waltz onto that freighter and look for the guy, when I had not even the faintest idea where to start on that big ass ship, not to mention with the untold number of goons probably running around.
Goons, that were armed to the teeth and quite possibly already on edge given, that their 'heavy hitter' was missing in action.
Squinting through the flimsy light provided by a cheap lighter I found in the boss man's desk my gaze landed on a pallet on the first layer of the rack I was currently standing in front of.
Stepping closer I craned my neck to get a better look at what caught my eye.
A warning label.
'Flammable'
A bunch of little white 20-liter plastic canisters seemingly all labeled with the same hazard symbol.
"Acetone." I read out loud what was plastered in big bold letters across the side of one of the canisters.
Thankfully the pallet was only haphazardly stretched with a few layers of clear film, and after a quick hop onto the shelf I was easily able to count 15 canisters on this single pallet.
Awkwardly balancing on the metal bar of the shelf my gaze slowly wandered from the canisters to the lighter in my hand, and then further to where I knew where the pallet jacks were parked.
"That's it," I muttered under my breath. "I'm officially crazy."
Hidden in the shadow of one of the dock cranes I was only some 100 feet away from the freighter and the five men guarding the only gangway leading up to the deck.
I had no fucking clue how many men were on that ship and frankly, I didn't want to know, because if all went according to plan things would get very messy very quickly.
The plan…the plan was the pallet right next to me, which I had dragged as quietly as possible to this spot.
15 canisters filled to the brim with acetone. 15 canisters, that each had a strip of cloth, which had once been my sweater, fiddled through the lid.
15 oversized Molotov cocktails ready to be thrown at my unsuspecting victims.
Ignoring the chill of the night, I chanced a final glance around the corner of the crane and eyed the spots I was going to aim for, and promptly shrugged my shoulders. Bridge and gangway, their only means to get away, the rest was bonus points.
I swallowed the last of my hesitation, crouched, blindly grabbed the first container, robotically pulled out the little lighter, and carefully lit the cloth.
And then…then I promptly yeeted the 20 liters of flammable liquid from my cover and watched with bated breath as it sailed through the air, almost in slow motion I saw it smack against the hull of the ship just above the gangway with a dull thud…before it violently exploded in a giant ball of fire.
And despite everything, despite having a vague idea of what was going to happen, I couldn't help but watch in horror as tongues of fire lashed out and engulfed the two men standing almost directly under the gangway.
Struck speechless, the remaining 14 canisters were momentarily left forgotten as I watched the men scream in agony.
Luckily the same screams quickly managed to pull me out of my stupor and let me focus back on the task at hand.
Behind cover again my eyes were back on the pallet and on the 14 canisters, with the screams still in the background.
'Maybe I don't need all of them?' I thought with a grimace.
But still, the bridge had to go.
Swallowing my reservations yet again I grabbed the next canister, lit it, and immediately tossed it out of my cover towards the general direction of the ship, which was promptly followed by an explosion on the middle of the fucking deck.
"Fuck!" I cursed, shook my head in annoyance, and immediately threw the next one.
…which exploded on the side of the ship directly under the bridge.
"Motherf…!" and the next went flying…and the next...and the next.
It was perhaps the sixth or seventh canister, that finally smacked against a window of the bridge in a shower of flames and shards, that allowed the fire to spill inside.
'That took way too long!' I thought in a mixture of genuine relief and embarrassment, which was followed by a survey of my handiwork, which made me immediately lose the small smile of satisfaction.
By now the entire ship was lit like a Christmas tree and a siren was roaring into the night sky. It could have only been a handful of minutes since I had started, but by now I was looking at a blazing inferno on parts of the deck and the tower.
And quite suddenly I was feeling like I just kicked a hornet's nest. Without warning whatsoever, scores of armed men, almost a small army, rushed towards the top of the gangway and down, mindless of the patches of flames sticking to the flimsy metal structure.
Slowly, oh so very slowly, I crouched down and firmly back into the shadows of the crane. Breathless I watched as the men streamed down upon the dock until there was literally a crowd, that steadily kept on growing.
Some were worse for wear, but all of them armed to the teeth. Kalashnikovs, SMGs, and pistols, the full range on display.
More and more people kept coming down that fucking gangway and I was suddenly hit with a sinking feeling, that sent an ice-cold shudder down my back.
This was an army!
The fat cunt had been planning a fucking invasion!
Suddenly my eyes picked up a commotion back on the deck, near the top of the gangway. Men were jumping left and right to make way for something…or someone.
And there he was, surrounded by heavily armed and armored guards, General Shan was guided through the fleeing surge of people and down the gangway.
My eyes jumped for a fraction of a second to the five remaining canisters on the pallet behind me. I could almost feel my heart in my throat, and yet, my hands were steady.
And for the first time tonight, my resolve was firmly in place.
I couldn't allow any of these animals into my city.
No mercy.
Without a shred of hesitation, I grabbed and lit the next canister of acetone, which went immediately flying right into the crowd of men.
This time I ignored the screams, he wanted war, he was going to get war.
The second canister went flying, aimed towards the bottom of the gangway where I last saw General Shan among his guards.
The next three were thrown for maximum casualties.
Then…with my blood pumping and boiling in my veins, mask firmly in place, my hands around my machete and revolver I bolted from my cover…right towards the fiery carnage, hell-bent on confirming my kill of the fat bastard.