A Night’s Work – Chapter 4

Mikhail kept driving, and his neck was beginning to hurt from being so tense for so long, but he couldn’t help but contract it as he fixed his eyes on the orange car ahead. Losing sight of it would mean losing on a pretty lucrative contract. They had failed to kill the two runners in the warehouse, mostly because the fucking van guys supposed to lure them in had let them plant a bomb under the van. The explosion was all the distraction two well-trained mercs like them needed to flee. But as a Black Jackal contractor, failure wasn’t really an option. The mercs weren’t the only ones with a vehicle nearby and their orange car wasn’t hard to spot in the distance so as soon as they left the factory, Mikhail and the rest of his squad, or the surviving members, were on board their armoured cars and hot on their tail.

He was expecting the two to try and flee deeper into the city but instead, they seemed to expect to use the narrow streets of the docks to lose them. Bad choice. Too many dead ends around those parts and it was just a matter of time until they cornered themselves in one. As Mikhail heard the shots being fired by his friend, he knew it was happening soon. They were unlikely to hit anything moving like that but it kept the pressure on the runners, and soon they would do something stupid.

Every now and then, the orange car took a sharp turn and they momentarily lost sight of it but there weren’t that many streets in the docks, and Mikhail knew that if he took the most obvious turn and he’d find them. That happened again and again, and he couldn’t help but smirk to himself, feeling how desperate the two must’ve been. And then the orange car took a sharp left turn and drove past a gate, knocking it down in the process.

“Got you, motherfuckers.”

That was it. They had driven into the pier. A long stretch of road on a concrete platform jutting into the sea. A few shipping containers, long abandoned, waited on either side, but there was nowhere else to go or turn. Mikhail followed suit. He could only see the tail lights of the car, given how dark that part of the city was, away from the neon signs and bright billboards. But that was enough. He pressed the foot deep into the pedal. The heavy-duty electrical engine hummed and they began closing in. Without any other exit, the two would need to surrender, or fight to the death. Mikhail and his men were prepared for both. And both would end with them being dumped into the ocean after he took a few pictures to send to their employer.

The orange car kept driving, without slowing, even as it approached the end of the pier. Mikhail frowned. He had to give it to them, they had balls. It wouldn’t save them but their tenacity was still admirable.

“Almost there, boys,” he shouted to the four other men with him in the car.

He was close enough that his headlights could illuminate the back of the orange car. And the end of the pier. And they still didn't slow down. Then, to Mikhail's surprise, they drove off the edge at full speed. Flying a few meters past it to land with a loud splash in the water. He hit the brakes and turned, avoiding, narrowly, giving his own truck the same fate.

The other car arrived seconds after and the whole group disembarked to watch the last flickering lights of the car's electric devices zapping as it sunk beneath the waves. And then disappeared into the bleak darkness under the water.

“Fucking hell,” Mikhail cursed.

“Did they... Just...” one of his men asked.

“I guess.” Mikhail huffed. “But we are not supposed to guess. Bring the submersible drone. One way or another we are getting a picture of those bodies,” he commanded.

“Yes, captain.”

They never made it easy, Mikhail concluded. Now he would be there for hours trying to find a car on the murky seafloor.

“You guys begin the search, I’ll call my wife to tell her not to wait up,” he added, bitterly.