Last Chance to Die, Noah Boyd [most read book in the world TXT] 📗

men got out, Kalix hurried to the back of the house. Vail walked up the three stairs onto the front porch and knocked hard on the door’s window. He didn’t wait for an answer, knocking again even more loudly. After a third time, there still was no answer. He yelled back to Kalix, “I’m going in!”

The house was a small one-story structure, and Vail could tell by the exterior construction that there was no basement. The door wasn’t locked, so he pushed it open, drawing his own automatic.

Someone had tried to rehab the drab interior cheaply. The floors were unfinished plywood, and the walls were mostly unmatched paneling. Like most houses that old, it was a basic rectangle with low, seven-foot ceilings, which were clogged with spiderwebs. To the right, through a doorway, Vail could see into the kitchen. There were two partially eaten carry-out meals on the table, which was a card table flanked by two folding chairs. Two beer bottles sat next to two empty glasses. At the bottom of one of the glasses, Vail could see small bubbles hugging the inside, indicating that whoever had been drinking beer had been gone no more than a few minutes. Since Vail and Kalix had been sitting outside that long, it meant that at least one person was still in the house. Not able to remember how to say “good afternoon” in Russian, Vail yelled “Dobroieutro!” and then, in English, an even louder “Good morning!” There was no answer.

Vail backed out of the kitchen and into the entryway. Straight ahead was what looked like a living room, although it was difficult to say without any furniture. Carefully, he walked into the room, his face brushing against more cobwebs. He caught a glimpse of Kalix out the back window, peeking in. Vail tried the door on the right side of the room, but it was locked. He moved from in front of it and knocked. “Dobroie utro.”

Again there was no response. The dead-bolt lock on the door looked brand new and out of place on an interior door. Across the room, directly opposite, was another door, leading to the left rear of the house. It was ajar and without any sort of visible lock on it. Cautiously Vail moved to it and pushed it open. At the top of the door, he noticed that some of the cobwebs that hung from the ceiling were matted against it, indicating that it had been closed recently. As he peeked around the jamb, he could see that the room had probably been a bedroom, with a surprisingly large closet crudely constructed in one corner.

Vail pulled his head back and leaned against the wall. Someone was in the house, and as far as he could tell, there were only two places to hide: in the locked room across from him or the closet in this bedroom. The fact that the one room had a locked door made it the more logical. The door, a hollow-core laminate, would not present any problem to kick in, but he wanted to eliminate the closet first. Once he determined that it was empty, then he could call Kalix in and they wouldn’t need to watch their backs as they went after the more likely target. With the two of them working in tandem, they could safely make entry into the locked room.

Raising his handgun to eye level, Vail went into the bedroom and moved quietly to the closet. Standing at the side, he grabbed the wooden knob on its door and pulled it open. When nothing happened, he looked in. It was empty, except for a full-length mirror that ran from the top to the bottom. What a bizarre place for a mirror, he thought.

He turned to go but then realized something that hadn’t immediately registered when he looked inside. At the top of the mirror, as on the door of the room, the ceiling cobwebs were matted against it. At the same moment, he heard a tiny metallic click that he’d heard a thousand times before. He spun around 180 degrees and fired four shots into the mirror. It exploded as the body of a man fell through it, a silver automatic dropping from his hand.

The cobwebs that were caught against the top of the mirror were in a triangular pattern, indicating that it opened on a hinge, catching them in a pattern similar to the one above the room’s door. Vail could now see the secret compartment behind it. The click he’d heard was the gun’s safety being released. As he stooped to pick up a piece of the mirror, there were a half-dozen shots fired from behind him. He dove to the side and rolled over, looking for a target.

In the doorway was a second man, slumping to the floor. Vail could see Kalix looking in through the window he’d just shot through. “Steve, you okay?” he shouted, his adrenaline apparently still pulsing.

“Yeah, come around to the front.” Vail went to the man whom Kalix had shot and verified that he was dead. Holstering his gun, he walked back to the closet and picked up a piece of the mirror, examining it.

Kalix came in at a trot. “You really are okay, right?”

“Are you okay?”

“I heard some shots, and when I looked in the window, I saw this guy coming up behind you ready to fire, so I opened up. He is a bad guy, isn’t he?”

Vail smiled. “Not anymore.” He held up the mirror fragment. “Two-way glass. I should have realized that the closet was deeper, but the mirror was meant to distort its depth.”

“Any idea who they are?”

“I would imagine they’re guys who get their paychecks in rubles.” Vail looked up at Kalix, who continued to stare at the man he’d just killed. “You want to go wait in the car? I’ll take care of searching these two.”

“No, no, I’m all right,” Kalix said. “Should I have yelled for him to surrender or something first?”

“This