Free Cry Assassin by Loki Renard Page A

they were there. The goons were responsible for the state of the room's other occupants, a paunchy middle aged man and a young woman. Both were taped to chairs, their mouths slathered with the same industrial tape that held their bodies prisoner. Trussed up completely, the only way they had of communicating was with their eyes, and both sets of eyes were wide with terror. The strained, puffed breaths they took through their noses sent trails of moisture down the metallic surface of the tape. Kirk stood in front of them and pushed his glasses down momentarily, taking them in over the frames. Years ago he might have felt some pang of empathy, but he'd seen too many scenes like this to be concerned by soft impulses like that anymore.
    This was often the face of business in the underworld, a world he'd grown comfortable in. Where once he would have balked at the idea of detaining a man and threatening him over money, he'd quickly learned that there are layers of law in the world. There is the written law, which the majority of society obeys. There is the law as it applies to the very rich and powerful, a fact that is resented by the common people who are free to observe the imbalance. Then there is the law as understood by the ruthless outcasts who carve out empires on the fringes of the mainstream: those who run guns, drugs and flesh, those whose dealings never see the light of day. This was the world Kirk inhabited. It was a filthy, cruel world, but no less ordered than common society in its own perverse way.
    He stepped forward and ripped the tape from the older man's mouth. After a gurgle of pain, the blabbering began almost immediately, the pleas for clemency, for life. If he'd known what Kirk knew, he'd have saved his breath. There was no point pleading. Anybody willing to kill a man trussed up in a chair was likely to enjoy the sight of their victim groveling before them. Defiance would have been a better option, but fear and a primal desire to appease the aggressor made the old man blubber like a baby. His name was Phil, Phil Day and he was a limp wristed importer / exporter who'd gotten in way over his head with the Russians who lurked in the background, waiting to finish the job they'd started. Kirk didn't know who the woman was; he didn't pay her much mind. She was as good as dead now that she was in this room, privy to a dirty business that should never be made known to feminine ears and eyes.
    “Silence,” Kirk ordered, cutting the man off with an abrupt, unsentimental bark. “You know why I'm here. Twenty million. I'm taking it before I leave here today, one way or another.”
    Phil's plasticine jowls wobbled in distress as his eyes became watery and started leaking tears. “Please. You have to believe me. I'm doing what I can. It's hard to ship material at the moment. They're watching the ports like hawks. I got two shipments busted this month. You have to tell Vlad I need more time.”
    “You don't have any more time,” Kirk said with deceptive calm. He used both hands to take his sunglasses off, folded them carefully and slipped them into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Twenty million. Transferred to the unmarked account. Now.”
    “I don't have it,” Phil protested. “I can get it, but I don't have it.”
    “Then we have a problem,” Kirk purred. “I have no choice but to let your gentleman callers continue their business before I begin mine.” The threat, though unspoken, was clear. He would allow the Russians to have their brutal fun before he carried out the sentence for nonpayment – death.
    The two men who had been lurking silently in the back of the room stood up and began cracking their necks and knuckles. Vicious gleams of anticipation lit their eyes. They were like dogs given permission to tear at a wounded animal before the hunter finished it off. “No!” Phil almost shrieked the plea. He jerked his head towards the woman. “Take her.”
    Without sparing the woman a glance,