Schemes of the Unknown Unknown Ch. 09

Lofty and his companions strode leisurely forward and let Grimaldi chat on, mostly to himself, about the relative quality of hamburgers on the seventh level of the colony compared with those on the second. Although the bodyguards must have wondered at the oddness of the three men being here on the same floor and might have recognised them from earlier, they kept up the pretence of unconcern right up to the point at which the two groups met. However, despite their discipline and training, they were no match for the three most ruthless assassins on the colony of Ecstasy.

Grimaldi continued his monologue right up to the point when he brushed against the Saturnian woman and then, with no warning, swung his forearm into her face. The steel bar strapped to the inside of his panther-skin jacket ensured that the impact broke her nose and very nearly dislodged her eye. Lofty and Foo Yong worked together on the man whose feet they kicked up from beneath and followed with some well-directed kicks to his face and groin.

Even Grimaldi was quiet as the three of them punched and kicked the two bodyguards until they were groaning in a bloody mess on the floor. Foo Yong had to be restrained from pulling down his trousers and raping the woman who lay in a crumpled heap with cracked teeth and a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. He had managed to rip off her top and had in the process let his blade slice through the firm flesh of her breast.

"There's time for that later," said Lofty firmly, as he pulled out of his jacket pocket the tranquiliser gun that would ensure that the bodyguards would be out of action for several more days. He was unusually cautious in the dosage settings. Any collateral and Xerxes might not be satisfied at merely reducing the fee he'd pass on to his godson after the job was done. In a normal job, Lofty would have dispatched the bodyguards in a much more satisfactory manner.

"Hey, it's the bitch!" said Foo Yong in a relatively low voice as he pointed at the woman who'd seduced Paul and was now standing just outside her apartment.

Good, thought Lofty. Get the bitch first, then the mark. Job almost done. He salivated at the prospect of following up the kicking he'd administered on the bodyguard with rather more leisurely ultraviolence on a woman who was totally naked and looked as easy a target as any he'd handled. It was just a shame she'd have to be left alive. But then it was better to fuck a woman streaming with blood than to piss on a corpse.

However, the time it took for him to die was only slightly longer than the time it took for him to be aware that this woman was someone who could defend herself with even more efficiency than he'd employed to kill Manu and his companions. He was barely aware of the fist that embedded itself briefly in Grimaldi's chest and the flying feet that smashed into Foo Yong's face. His neck was pulled back and the vertebrae snapped by a woman who was now no longer ten metres ahead, but just behind him.

With the strangely enhanced sensory perception of a dying man, he slumped to the ground on top of his companions aware only of two naked thighs on either side of his chest and the pressure of a hand on his chest that crushed his ribs and the last vestige of breath that was left to him.

Lofty had met his match and he'd had no opportunity at all to fight back.