The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

“Where are the others?”

“One is usually at the elevator entrance. Two with the man. One roams on the balcony. All in gray suits.”

“Thank you, Yaroslav. Do you mind if we go upstairs through the employee entrance?” Bridger asked, as he pushed the button before he had an answer.

“No, sir. Of course.” Yaroslav held the door open to let the men in, nodding to each as they passed.

“Thank you. And…um…keep an eye on that Mercedes, okay?” The doors closed on the service elevator.

When the door opened, the deafening music, spinning lights, intense heat, body oder, and gyrating bodies assaulted Bridger’s senses. The place was packed with men trying to look tough and women who didn’t need to work hard to look sexy.

The ceiling was illuminated with semi-circular rows of colored lights positioned like stars. Powerful beams of light—greens, yellows, purples, blues—hanging from spinning overhead projectors sliced the darkness, catching the fog shooting from machines at the stage.

Plush gray couches and high-backed chairs were arranged in rows facing the bar and stage. They were jammed with patrons laughing, pointing, and screaming into their friend’s ears, trying to be heard over the booming music. Every table was coated with glasses, bottles, and plates. Along the far wall was a large panoramic window with a stunning night view of Kyiv.

To Bridger, it looked like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe horror story.

“Beatrice? Milton?”

“We are jammed by the windows about twenty feet away from the target.”

Bridger could barely hear them in his earbud.

Dressed as tourists, Milton and Beatrice had arrived at the club two hours before—just moments after the Chinese. The couple had been dancing and drinking since then.

“Okay, wait for the clicks,” he semi-shouted into his comm.

Snake broke right out of the elevator, then left. He walked between the DJ stand and stage where girls in mesh tops and short skirts whirled their arms over their heads. Snake forced his way past the bar toward the elevators that went directly from the ground floor to the club level.

Snake could see a small man in a gray suit shouting in the face of bigger men. The security men's faces were red with anger, but they let the little man shout and point at them. He pointed at the people coming off the elevator and back toward the sitting area.

Snake had his Devil Stick in his left hand along his leg. In stride, he grabbed a square appetizer plate off a table with his right hand, walked into the elevator alcove, and tapped the shorter man on his shoulder. The screaming Chinese intel officer wheeled around, exposing his neck as he tilted his face up to glare at the taller intruder.

Snake speared the man’s throat with the edge of the plate. He staggered back and gurgled as he grabbed his damaged windpipe. Snake dropped the plate, grabbed him by the lapel, and shoved the Devil Stick into the man’s groin.

He quickly maneuvered the guard against the wall. A pistol fell from the man’s jacket and clattered on the dark floor. Using his weight to keep him in place, Snake kept up a constant Beethoven’s 9th Symphony rhythm on his groin —tap, tap, tap, taaaaaap. After ten seconds, Snake let go. The MSS officer slid down the wall and crumbled at Snake’s feet.

Skybar security guards were going about their jobs of inspecting people exiting the elevators. No one entering the club seemed to notice or care what was happening a few feet away. The security men turned as Snake walked by.

“He is all yours.”

Snake heard through the earsplitting music the sound of steel-toed boots hitting a body and the crack of ribs breaking. He clicked his comm once. Over the noise, he heard two clicks come back.

Demon was on the narrow balcony that overlooked the nightclub. Five small tables and chairs were crammed along two large horizontal tubes that served as a railing. The four tables nearest Demon were crowded with partiers. At the fifth and farthest table, one man in a gray suit sat alone, looking down, mostly on the dancing girls below.

For a man many decades older than his target, Demon was agile and quick. The party-goers were oblivious to the man squeezing by them. The MSS man froze for an instant, caught off guard by the terrifying look on the face of the man who appeared like an apparition above him. Before he could retrieve the gun from his jacket, Demon was on him.

With a high thrust of the knife, he held it palm down, entering it straight into the neck near the man’s Adam’s apple. He rotated his hand up to maximize the damage and sever the left internal jugular vein and left common carotid artery. The space was small, so Demon kept the knife in place as he rotated his hips to bring his entire body weight to bear on the dying Chinese sentry. He held the man up, counting off the seconds. Their faces were inches apart. Demon smiled into the fading eyes, which in seconds transitioned from pain, fear, and finally, the eternal blank stare of death.

Ten seconds later, using the knife like a joystick, he guided the dead man into his chair and propped his head against the wall. Demon pulled the knife out. Blood instantly flowed down the dead man’s new suit, onto the table, and then the floor. Demon wiped the bloody knife on the shoulder of the dead man’s suit, turned, scanned the crowd below, and headed to the stairs. He turned and pointed his Devil Stick at the people a few feet behind him, expecting some of them to have noticed his bloody attack.

None had.

He clicked his comm once. Two clicks came back.

Bridger remained by the service elevator while Snake and Demon completed their tasks. With the confirmation clicks, it was Milton’s and Beatrice’s turn to move. Bridger spotted them in the far corner of the club on a direct diagonal from where he was. They were collecting their things and standing.

He