Chapter XI

Defeated

As Alan’s chopper made its way southwards towards Lord Boris’ fortress. Deep inside of a ventilation shaft, Dmitri looks down through an air duct into a pristine corridor below him, so much so, it was almost too clean for his liking. and as the minutes continue to march along. Dmitri witnesses the usually large flood of numerous visitors to the Mayor’s office slow down to a trickle, until the corridor becomes empty, as Dmitri begins to slowly remove the sir duct hatch, the door to the office opens and the mayor himself vacates, looking up and down the corridor before his eyes fix on the air duct. He pauses for a few moments before shrugging and walking down the corridor towards the exit. A few moments later a security guard enters the office to make his final rounds.

“Here goes nothing.” Dmitri said to himself in an undertone, as he exits opens the air duct and positions himself so that he is directly above the door to the office, if someone was to enter the corridor from any other direction than The Mayor’s office he would be caught for sure, but luckily nobody does.

After a few minutes the security guard leaves the Mayor’s office and casually goes to close the door behind him, when he is taken by surprise as Dmitri drops down from the ceiling and slices the guard’s throat with his knife. The floor goes an even darker shade of red as the guard sputters to the grown and his head falls into the pool of his own blood. A few seconds later the guard stops flopping about like a fish out of water, and lays still on the ground. As Charlie comes through the door on the other side of the room and looks at the scene.

“What the fuck did you do?” Charlie said looking down at the fresh corpse on the grown in horror. She had agreed to come on this mission purely on the basis that their would be no chance of  murder.

“What?” Dmitri said cleaning the bloody knife with a cloth, looking and sounding surprised at the way Charlie was looking between himself, and the dead guard on the ground at his feet.

“Why did you kill him?” Charlie said gesturing at the dead guard. Dmitri looks first at the dead guard and then at Charlie.

“Look he would have done the same to us if I hadn't. In this game it’s kill or be killed.” Dmitri said shrugging. Charlie just stares at the scene, still looking slightly mortified. So, Dmitri continues on with his explanation. “Look if you're going to come with me then you play by my rules. If not, I can always call Vernon and have him come and babysit you.” He finishes putting the knife back into its sheath. Charlie just walks past the dead guard not looking at Dmitri. The two of them walk into the Mayor's office and go straight to the desk. Only to realise that it's locked.

“Stand back.” Charlie said kneeling down in front of the desk and takes out a lockpick. At this Dmitri chortles to himself at the apparent naivety on display from his unexperienced companion.

“Wait what are you doing?” Dmitri asked, looking at Charlie with an almost bored and tired expression, who in response continues to ignore Dmitri and starts to pick the lock. “Hey, lady that ain't going to work, this aint a movie. What do you think that breaking in is that...” Dmitri starts, but then he hears a small click from the desk, looking down he sees that Charlie then successfully picks the lock and looks at Dmitri with a smug look on her face. “...easy.” Dmitri finishing his previous thought.

“Right then let's have a look at what we have here.” Charlie said, standing up. The two of them open the draw only to see a countdown on the a small block. Then an all too familiar voice comes over the PA system.

“Well, I didn't expect that, Well I did, but not that quickly to be honest. You've impressed me. Sadly, that doesn't really matter.” The voice of Mayor Osmund said with a hint of glee in the voice. Dmitri scans the room, and then sees it. A small camera in the very top corner of the room, just by the door. In their haste to get the mission done, they had failed to scout the room properly and thus, had missed the recording device when they charged inside.

“What the fuck is this?” Charlie said looking around the room. Dmitri however picks up the small box examining it for a few seconds. It didn’t feel like anything like important information that could have given them a win. Not that Dmitri had hoped for such and easy victory. All the same though, this thing seemed to be too heavy for anything that would naturally be in an office. Then the answer hit him full in the face as the thing springs to life, and begins ticking down from a minute.

“Bomb!” Dmitri yells dropping it back into the desk and closing, for all the good it would do, but it might just give them a few precious seconds. As he did this, the Mayor continues to speak, it his cold but strangely happy tone.

“Did you really think that I would be that stupid as to leave sensitive information in my office.” Osmund continues as large steel panels start closing on the only door to the office. Dmitri runs towards it and starts trying to pry it open. As he was doing this, Charlie notices that the bomb only has thirty seconds till it goes off.

“The window.” Dmitri said, more to himself than to Charlie, who turning around, immediately knew what Dmitri was thinking, although it did nothing to improve her nerves. She had never been good with extreme heights. But if it was a choice between facing the long drop to the ground, or being blown up, she’d take the former, and the window was the only thing that was not blocked by steel or bricks.

“I'm afraid I have been stalling. Admit it, this is a better death than either of you could ever have hoped for.” Osmund said as Dmitri grabs hold of Charlie and runs towards the window which doesn't have any protection on it.

“I hope you're good with heights.” Dmitri said looking out of the window to the street 3thirty stories below them.

“So, I guess it is goodbye.” Osmund finished as Dmitri and Charlie jump out of the window just as the bomb explodes. The force of the blast was enough to send both Dmitri and Charlie a few feet extra away from the building, and a jet of flame erupted out of the window behind them, singeing Charlie’s hair in the process. As they look up, several pieces of paper fall lazily out of the window behind them, and both assume that the bomb had utterly destroyed The Mayor’s office completely.

Down in the street Charlie gets up of the wet and muddy grown spitting out bits of dirt and to her surprise a bit of blood. She quickly realises that the blood was from biting her tongue when she collided with the ground. Next to her, Dmitri was detaching a small parachute from his backpack as sirens can be heard approaching from the distance.

“Get up, we’ve got to move.” Dmitri said, walking over to Charlie who was looking up at the flaming tower block.

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.

“Slums.” Dmitri said. “It’s a lot safer there than anywhere else in the city right about now.” He finished, as Charlie got up and the two of them ran away from the scene, exiting the square just as two cop cars pull up.

Once they arrived at the slums district about half an hour later, Dmitri pushed a button on his gauntlet activating the distress call.

“Not much to do now but wait.” Dmitri said leaning up against a building as Charlie looked around at their new surrounding with more trepidation. She had always been told to stay away from this area of the city, as it had for a long time been abandoned to criminals and other less savoury types, or so she had heard.

“How do you know we’re going to be safe?” Charlie asked.

“Because the cops don’t come down here if they can help it.” Dmitri said. “They prefer to just say they searched the area, whilst instead going back to their comfortable lives.” He continued, looking around at the ruined buildings and the unpaved streets and in truth, despite his distain for the local law enforcement, he couldn’t say that he blamed them. “Anyways the people around here have a code of silence. They won’t rat out anybody that comes down here looking for shelter and they hate cops as bad as the cops hate them. You come down here wearing a uniform and your life expectancy can be calculated in minutes.” Dmitri finished.

As the two talked a thick set man walked up holding a knife. Dmitri gets up and hopes to the gods that the man would just walk past them, however as with everything else that had happened that evening things went downhill fast. The man as he was turning walking past notices Charlie, he stops and visibly licks his lips. Noticing this Charlie gets up and takes out the knife and before Dmitri could do or say anything, she plunges the blade right into the man’s stomach. The man howls in agony, clutching the hole in his stomach and looking at the pair with murder in his eyes.

“You Fucking Bitch!” The man shouts and begins to lumber forwards however, Dmitri takes hold of the man’s head, and quickly draws the knife across his throat spilling blood onto the dirt street.

“Are you mad?” Dmitri said looking at Charlie as he sheaths his own knife and looks around at the seemingly empty buildings, and whilst nobody had come out to investigate the noise, Dmitri knew that it wouldn’t take long, even down in this area of the city.

“What?” Charlie said. “You said there were no cops here right. No order.” She finished but didn’t like the way Dmitri kept looking around at the buildings.

“Yes, there are no cops, but there is order that you can count on. We’ve just got to pray that nobody heard him.” Dmitri said cleaning his weapon and removing the man’s blood as quickly as possible. As he continues to stare around at the poorly lit street, all Charlie could hear was the sound of Dmitri’s rapid breathing. 

Their luck however, seemed to have come as nobody did come to investigate the noise and after about an hour a set of head lights came out through the mist. Dmitri raises his gun, fearing the cops, or worse some remains of the old mob force that still had a strong grip over the slums. Fortunately however, it was revealed to be the same limo that Dmitri had been picked up in all those months before. The car stopped in the street and Vernon stepped out, looking out of place in his suit and tie in this poorest of places, as Charlie and Dmitri walked up to him, they could tell that something was wrong, the old man’s face was as pale as a ghost in the dim light of a nearby streetlamp, one of the few that still worked in this part of the slums.

“Get us out of here old man.” Dmitri said as he walked over to which the old butler only nodded, he had heard about what had happened at The Mayor’s office on his way down and had seen the still burning office tower as he had entered the city.

It wasn’t until they were back at the manor, that Dmitri realised that the butler had not insulted him once since picking them up, which was either a sign that things were starting to look up for him, or that something was terribly wrong that the butler was trying to gain favour with him.

The answer to that question came the following morning when Alan’s chopper landed on the manor lawn streaked in bullet holes, with news that Alan’s mission had gone even further south than there’s had.