Devon Ford - The Fall

He knew that any further verbal warnings, or pointless shouts for them to freeze, would only result in them turning and laying down more fire at him, and that would mean endangering the lives of the people running to get off the street. Keeping low, he saw the lead shadow turn and take a knee, scanning the street in his direction over a rifle barrel. Jake dropped flat, skidding on the sidewalk and losing his hat. Instinctively he reached for the radio on his shoulder, clicking the button but saying nothing. It made no noise and he remembered it was dead.

He was on his own.

Cal put his handful of cash in the bag held by the thug who appeared to have been born without a visible neck. His hackles rose as the thug’s eyebrows under his receding hairline raised when he took a closer look at Louise beside him. Cal stiffened, but Louise placed a hand on his leg and smiled as she dropped in her handful of small notes and tried to placate the brutal man. He shot one last look of warning to Cal and moved on for greater spoils.

“Don’t even think about it,” Louise whispered to him. “Y’all ain’t big enough to take on these assholes.”

Cal didn’t care at that moment. He was offended, deeply, right to the core of his very soul, by these goons. Taking his money was one thing, but after what he had survived today already he was sure as hell not going to get killed by some petty thieves, especially not ones who were looking at Louise like they did.

“Gentlemen, please,” Cal heard from the front of the room, unmistakably Sebastian’s cultured tones. “I implore you not to hurt any of our guests, just take what you want and leave.”

Cal groaned inside. As sure as he was that Sebastian had to make the attempt, he knew that the thugs would be highly unlikely to respond positively to being told to—no matter how politely it was phrased—get the fuck out. The lead thug stopped, turned toward the source of the voice, and asked him to repeat himself. Sebastian stood, straightened his jacket, and calmly asked the thugs to go about their intended business and then leave, peacefully.

The thug smiled. “You hear that boys?” he said to his goons, laughing. “The gentleman here wishes us to leave peacefully,” he sneered, producing the oversized handgun from his waistband and waving it around the room as he spoke. He began to walk toward Sebastian slowly, waving the gun around recklessly in tune with his words as though he were directing some grotesque orchestra. “Well I regret to inform the gentleman that our business will not be concluded for some time,” he said, stepping close to Sebastian and craning his neck to look the suave man in the eye. Finding the height difference not to his liking he turned away in a feint, but spun and brought the barrel of his heavy pistol round to crack it across the smug man’s face.

Watch this, bitches , he thought to himself triumphantly, baring his teeth with a grunt as he put all his effort into the cheap shot.

His momentum pulled him straight through where the contact should have been, and he wasn’t rewarded with the sickening crunch he was anticipating. Instead he spun off balance, half stumbling to the floor tangled in his own feet.

And that was when the strike hit him. It wasn’t a punch as such, wasn’t a fist hitting him as he had experienced so many times in his life, but was more like being stabbed. Incidentally, that was also something he had experienced more than once in his life, but neither occasion had prepared him for this. A single protruding knuckle impacted just to the left of his windpipe, having the instant effect of removing the last shred of control he had over his feet. Worse still, before he could fulfill the intentions of gravity and hit the plush carpeted ground, a second jab impacted his right eye and blinded him. He finally finished his uncontrolled descent and hit the carpet so hard he bounced up a little. As he spun, in between the two sniper-accurate jabs that rendered him useless, Sebastian had snatched the gun from his hand and raised it to the surprised thugs, switching the aim from one to the other.

Confusion reigned over them, their panic evident in the glances they threw at one another. “Don’t!” Sebastian warned them. “Guns on the floor and get out,” he told them, waiting a few seconds before racking back the topslide of the weapon. A spinning brass round ejected from the port, showing that the thug already had a bullet chambered, but Sebastian wanted to make sure. He had learned long ago that the psychological effect of the action went a long way to invoke fear, like the unmistakable racking of a pump action shotgun. They both put down their guns and held up their hands.

“And take this”—he paused and shot a sharp kick into the ribs of the moaning, insensible gangster at his feet— “ gentleman with you,” he finished, earning a small giggle from the few guests not paralyzed by fear.

Slowly, cautiously, the goons crept forward and dragged their diminutive boss with them. Sebastian followed them all the way to the shattered window they had used to admit themselves, shooting a glance at his security guard who has down and bleeding from the head. He watched as they retreated into the darkness before giving instructions to block the shattered window with furniture, for his remaining intact security guards to utilize the sawed-off shotguns they had now inherited, and for the injured man to be given medical attention, all before he furrowed his brow and thought hard about their next move. Cal found him there, flanked by Louise, still deep in thought.

“Sebastian,” Cal said, almost waking him up from his trance.

“Cal. Yes. Sorry?” he said, regaining his composure.

“Um, you okay?” Cal asked him. “That was some Bruce Lee shit back there, mate…”

“Those self-defense classes paid off I suppose,” he responded glibly with a smile which neither of them believed. “If you’ll excuse me?” he said before walking away, leaving the two with more questions than answers. They heard orders being given, polite orders but orders all the same, for people to head upstairs away from the ground floor.

Jake had dogged the pair of shooters nearly ten blocks like a relentless bloodhound, hoping for a chance to get a shot off or to miraculously bump into some backup. Without communications, he felt totally exposed and more vulnerable than he had ever been in his life. Still, he couldn’t let these two go, he couldn’t break off his pursuit, but neither could he see a way that this could end well.

Here am I, he recited from the book of Isaiah privately as though the words could steel his resolve and shroud him in righteous armor, send me.

Shouts up ahead made him pop his head over the hood of the car he was using as cover, and the responding burst of automatic fire didn’t take long to zero in on his position. The noises, the pattern of their cat and mouse engagement had changed somehow, but Jake had yet to figure it out. He heard shouts again, and more muted gunfire from the suppressed weapons he would have nightmares about for the rest of his life, but none of the shots fired came in his direction this time; they were engaged to their front.

Creeping low to the rear of a car, he sprinted across to the other side of the street without looking first so as not to give away his new position. He didn’t stop until he threw himself hard into the opposite sidewalk and tucked into cover. He hadn’t been seen, and hopefully the shooter who had taken a pop at him would not be expecting him on this side. Staying low, he moved toward the shouts and gunfire until he could hear the grunts and breathing of his suspects. Tucked in low with his back up against the front wheel of a car, Jake took three long and slow breaths to steady himself.