Escape

The glass door behind Beta suddenly shattered, and a hulking man lunged out, his iron-grip arms clamping around Beta's waist.

They slammed hard into the floor. Their helmets hit the marble with a teeth-rattling thud. Fortunately, the Kevlar helmet kept the back of Beta's head from splitting open.

The attacker struggled to reach for his gun, but Beta was faster.

Lying on his back, he raised his gun and fired. The bullet punched straight into the man's left chest. The bodyguard grunted but kept pinning him down. Beta immediately locked his legs around the man's neck like a python and kept firing toward the pool.

Through the swaying figures and splashing water, he saw Iosef, naked as the day he was born, scrambling up the ladder with both hands and feet.

Beta gritted his teeth, swung his gun around, and fired once, finishing off the bodyguard wrapped around him. Then he emptied his magazine at the fleeing figure.

The slide locked back with a click. The bullets had only left a few holes in the tempered-glass railing. Iosef's pale, bare backside flashed once at the corner before disappearing into the upper-level passage.

Beta rolled over and kicked the corpse away, using the momentum to duck behind a marble column. He swiftly ejected the empty Glock 17 magazine, pulled a fresh one from his belt, and seated it in the grip with a click.

Three precise, rapid shots took down the bodyguards charging at the front. The first punched through a heart, the second blew open a skull, and the third went into the target's spine after he fell.

The second bodyguard's .45-caliber round slammed into Beta's ballistic plate. As the ceramic insert cracked with a dull thud, Beta leaned back to absorb the force and fired three shots in return the instant his back hit the ground. Two 9mm Parabellum rounds punched into the man's abdomen; the third entered through his mouth and pierced his skull.

Beta rolled onto his side and spun behind another load-bearing column, sliding the Glock into its quick-draw holster.

He removed the empty rifle magazine with one hand and flipped the paired magazine assembly over. The spare magazine had already been secured to the empty one in reverse with a side clip. With a metallic click, 30 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition were loaded again. The entire reload took less than two seconds.

Beta leaned out and shot the last bodyguard at the end of the hallway.

He quickly swung his rifle toward the second-floor fight and aimed through the glass railing. The suppressor-equipped rifle cracked repeatedly, its 5.56mm rounds easily penetrating multiple layers of reinforced glass and dropping the three bodyguards surrounding John in succession.

John seized the opportunity to pick up the fallen pistol. He thumbed the empty magazine out, and a fresh one clicked into the grip.

"Go after Iosef!" he shouted downstairs. His voice rang out clearly through the building during the lull in gunfire.

Beta understood. After taking out another bodyguard who lunged at John, he immediately turned and sprinted toward the utility room. In the narrow maintenance passage, his shoes clattered across the metal grating.

Every second mattered now. Their BMW was parked in the back alley, and to catch that naked bastard, they needed to get behind the wheel first.

Beta charged through the bathroom, splashing through pools of blood, and slammed his shoulder into the back door. The metal frame buckled with a clang under the force of the impact.

He raced toward the BMW sitting silent in the alley and flung his cumbersome Kevlar helmet onto the back seat as he yanked the door open.

The engine roared to life. The rear tires scraped across the asphalt, leaving two trails of smoke. The BMW shot out of the alley and whipped into a sharp drift at the first intersection. Its tires shrieked against the pavement, startling the entire street.

While the car was still sliding slightly from its momentum, Beta spotted the chaos outside the club's main entrance. Wrapped in a bath towel, Iosef looked like a startled chicken as he scrambled into the back seat of a silver Mercedes-Benz.

The two cars were now chasing each other down the main road. The BMW's V8 engine let out a furious roar, its tachometer needle nearing the redline as it rapidly closed the gap with the Mercedes-Benz.

Iosef twisted around in terror in the back seat. Through the Mercedes-Benz's rear window, he saw the black BMW bearing down on him like a vengeful ghost.

"Step on it, goddamn it!" he screamed, pounding the back of the driver's seat. His voice cracked.

The bodyguard driving the Mercedes-Benz stomped on the gas. The tires screeched against the asphalt and belched a cloud of smoke. The force shoved Iosef hard against the leather seat, and the distance between the cars began to widen.

Beta floored it. The BMW's front end slammed into the Mercedes-Benz's rear with a dull bang and a groan of twisting metal. The Mercedes-Benz swerved from side to side like a startled beast, its hazard lights flashing frantically. But the driver quickly regained control and continued its frantic escape.

The two luxury cars raced down the neon-lit street, their speedometers long past the limit.

The silver Mercedes-Benz barreled through two side-by-side taxis like a maddened shark. With a loud crunch, both side mirrors snapped off, and the doors buckled inward from the impact.

The BMW followed close behind, its engine roaring as it tore through the night. The driver of the taxi on the right had just pushed open his door to get out and see what was happening when the speeding BMW sheared it off at the hinge.

The driver froze in his seat, pale as he watched the twisted door spin through the air, then crash to the ground. The two speeding luxury cars had already vanished down the street, leaving only the shrill squeal of tires echoing between the buildings.

Iosef pulled a bodyguard's gun from the back seat, braced his knees against the leather seat, and leaned halfway out the window.

His hands trembled as he squeezed the trigger. Bullets screamed through the BMW's front windshield, leaving a web of cracks in the glass.

Beta ducked sharply, avoiding the shots, and floored the accelerator.

The BMW's front end slammed into the Mercedes-Benz's rear like a sledgehammer. The two speeding luxury cars immediately went out of control. The Mercedes-Benz's tires shrieked as they skidded under the tremendous impact, and the car spun 180 degrees like a top before crashing rear-first into the front of a Toyota by the roadside.

The BMW swerved hard to avoid it, but its momentum sent the rear end fishtailing out of control. It slammed diagonally into an oncoming car. The airbags exploded with a bang, and Beta's vision went black from the impact.

He shook his dizzy head and looked through the shattered window at the Mercedes-Benz, which was making a death rattle. Its rear suspension had been thrown high into the air by the collision and was slowly settling back down, while black smoke poured from the exhaust pipe.

Beta drew his pistol and shot the obstructing airbag. He pressed the ignition button hard, but the engine only coughed weakly a few times. Red warning lights flashed across the dashboard. The severe impact to the front end had wrecked the engine and left the BMW completely dead.

The silver Mercedes-Benz's rear wheels spun wildly against the asphalt, sending up clouds of white smoke as the rubber scraped violently against the road.

With a clang of metal, the twisted rear suspension finally broke free of the Toyota's front end and slammed back onto the ground. The engine let out a dying roar, but the battered luxury car lurched forward once more and fled in the direction it had come from.

—Replying to a reader's comment: I didn't use a movie still or a real person's photo for the character image because I don't want to pin down what any particular character looks like.

—Everyone has their own idea of what a character looks like. The author only needs to provide a general description and a rough image. There's no need to overdo it by telling readers, "This is exactly what this character looks like."

—I'm just an author. The readers are the bosses. I should leave room for them to imagine.