78. Lazarus
The alley is a slaughterhouse.
Three of my men are already down, their bodies crumpled against the cobblestones, their blood pooling in the cracks between the stones.
The rest are pinned behind the overturned convoy vehicles, trading fire with attackers positioned on the rooftops above.
I count six shooters. No, seven. Two on the north roof, three on the south, and two more at the end of the alley behind an overturned dumpster.
Professionals. They move like men who’ve been trained, communicating with hand signals, covering each other as they advance. They’re not just shooting, they’re executing. Picking off my men one by one.
I raise the Glock and fire.
The first shot takes a shooter on the north roof in the throat.
He staggers, drops his rifle, and topples over the edge.
The second shot hits the man beside him in the chest centre mass, easy target, dead before he hits the ground.
I’m already moving, already pivoting, already tracking the next threat.
“Sir!” My head of security shouts from behind an overturned SUV. “Sir, get back in the car!”
“How many are there?”
“At least a dozen. Maybe more. They’ve got us boxed in.”
“Call for backup.”
“I’ve been trying. They’re jamming the signal. We can’t get through.”
Of course they fucking are. Of course.
I scan the rooftops, looking for a way out. The alley opens onto a side street about fifty meters ahead, but the attackers have positioned themselves to cut off any retreat. They’re not trying to kill me. If they wanted me dead, they could have put a rocket through the car and been done with it.
They want me alive.
They want to capture me.
Which means they want to use me, or they want something else.
I fire again, and another shooter goes down.
My remaining men are rallying now, laying down cover fire, pushing back against the assault.
The attackers are good, but my men are better.
They’ve been trained since birth to protect the bloodlines.
They will die before they let harm come to me or my family.
But there are so many of them.
I feel the bullet before I hear it; a searing heat across my ribs, the impact spinning me sideways.
I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of me, my vision swimming.
For a moment, I can’t move. I can’t think.
I can only lie there on the blood-slick cobblestones and stare up at the strip of sky visible between the rooftops.
Lazarus.
I hear my name. Not spoken aloud, but whispered in the back of my mind. It feels like my father’s voice. My brother’s voice. The voice of every man who has tried to kill me and failed.
Get up.
I roll onto my side, and the pain is a white-hot lance through my torso, but I’ve felt worse. So much worse. I push myself to my feet, and my hand comes away red from my ribs, but I’m still standing.
Still breathing. Still fighting.
The bullet only grazed me.
I raise the Glock and put two rounds into the dumpster where the shooters are hiding. One of them screams, a high, keening sound that cuts off abruptly. The other breaks cover and runs. I let him go. He won’t get far.
Sirens wail in the distance. Police. The cavalry, arriving late as always.
The remaining attackers hear it too. They hesitate, exchanging glances, and then they do something I don’t expect.
They retreat. Not in panic, not in disarray but in a coordinated withdrawal, melting back into the shadows of the rooftops like smoke dissipating in the wind.
The shooting stops.
For a moment, the alley is silent save for the groans of the wounded and the distant wail of sirens. I stand in the centre of the carnage, my chest heaving, my gun still raised, waiting for the next attack. Only, it doesn’t come.
Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
I turn back toward the car, I race towards it, already knowing what I’m going to find, what has happened.