Lethal Force: Axel Blaze Thriller Book 2 (Releasing May 21, 2022), page 1
LETHAL FORCE
BILL RUNNER
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Bill Runner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission from the author except for the use of quotations in a book review.
Request for permission should be addressed to billrunnerauthor@gmail.com.
First ebook edition May 2022
978-1-7398325-2-0
www.bill-runner.com CHAPTER 1 The woman’s heels clicking on the sidewalk broke the uneasy silence of the deserted street. She was walking rapidly, taking short, quick steps. Nervous energy propelled her as she glanced back every few seconds, fighting the impulse to break into a run. Her sixth sense was screaming at her about a lurking danger but wasn’t giving any clues about hidden threats.
She was young, barely twenty. Short, slender, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail,
accentuating the dark eyes, dressed in a business suit, although it didn’t look like she was comfortable wearing high heels.
In the wrong place at a bad time. Many back alleys of downtown Denver can be lonely places except during morning delivery hours. At that late evening hour, when shadows were growing longer by the minute, there wasn’t anyone around she could turn to for help.
The woman suddenly stopped as two men emerged from an alley forty yards in front of her. Heavily built, each weighing much more than twice the slender woman of barely a hundred pounds. They spread themselves across the sidewalk—it didn’t look like they intended to let her through.
The men began moving towards her, taking slow, menacing steps. One of them spoke a few words into a phone and slipped it back into his pocket. A black van parked two hundred yards down the street showed signs of life. A man sitting inside switched on its headlights.
The woman turned and began retracing her steps, looking straight ahead, trying hard not to look back or break into a run. She tried
controlling her breathing, taking deep breaths, trying to force herself not to panic.
She must have taken ten steps when something made her catch her breath. Two men had appeared from an alley five yards in front of her and blocked her path.
Her dark eyes grew wide in alarm. Sweat broke out on her brow. She was trapped. The outer wall of a building on her side of the street ruled out any chance of escape in that direction. The only way to run was into the road and the empty parking lot on the other side.
The woman and the two men blocking her stood motionless for a few seconds. But the scared look on the woman’s face had begun to change. She was starting to look almost relieved. The men’s faces, on the other hand, showed confusion.
The woman was looking at a point behind them. She’d seen what those two hadn’t yet realized.
The door of a pickup parked a few yards behind them had opened and the shadowy figure of a man had jumped out of the truck on catlike feet. He moved silently towards the two men, flexing his wrists and neck, getting the
circulation going. The man was a couple of inches over six feet, weighing just over 200 pounds, dressed in a black T-shirt worn over a pair of weathered jeans and well-worn cowboy boots. The woman knew him well.
The thing is, I ’m the guy the woman saw jumping out of the pickup. Folks call me Blaze. I’m a US Army vet. Enlisted after 9/11 and did ten years of active duty. Made it to the Special Forces—75th Ranger Regiment. When I took early retirement, I was Major Axel Blaze in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment— Delta (Sabre Squadron D). Most civilians know it as Delta Force. I moved on to join the US Marshals for five years. Headed the Special Operations Group (SOG), the Marshals’ tactical unit. When I left the Marshals seven months back, I was Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal Axel Blaze. Now, kind of retired at 36, I’ve been spending time reacquainting myself with life on a ranch, on my spread lying between Colorado’s Black Canyon on the north and the San Juan Mountains on the south.
The woman was Winona, daughter of my mentor and manager of the Blaze ranch, Adriel Claw. I’d known her since she was a toddler. Adriel and Winnie were the only family I had left.
You know what they say —you can leave the army, but the army never leaves you. Well, the army never left this soldier. And neither did the Marshals. When your work involves chasing lowlifes, you learn to keep your ear to the streets. I was still in the game that way. Still got intel when bad shit was going to happen. I’d received a tip Winona was going to be taken. A scumbag narco who had a beef with me was going to take it out on her.
Not gonna happen.
Anyone messing with family was going to get hurt. I was carrying a Glock and could’ve ended it right there and then. But I wasn’t going to do it the easy way. I didn’t want to give them the chance to back off. There wasn’t going to be any walking away. These guys were going to get hurt bad.
By the time the men began turning their heads to look back, I was directly behind them. I placed my hands at the back of their turning heads and smashed their foreheads together with all the power I could muster. The thudding sound of heads banging into each other echoed through the street. Their legs turned to jelly as they began going down.
I didn’t have time to inflict more damage. The two men approaching from the other end of the street had started running towards us. The black van had also begun moving, although the guys in the van were still too far off to figure out what was happening. I guessed they would speed up soon as they got the signal that Winona had been grabbed.
I slammed the two men’s faces against the wall, smashing their noses and knocking out front teeth. While they crumpled and fell to the ground unconscious, I turned my attention to the two threats running toward me.
Men who deal with violence regularly have to make reacting to attacks a part of their reflex mechanism. It’s either that, or they don’t survive. With practice, their reaction to an attack becomes a conditioned reflex. They don’t think about it. They just do it. Strike first. And hard. Put the threat down. Fast.
The man closest to me began reaching inside his cotton jacket. He was still drawing his gun when I rushed to meet him head on. His Glock cleared the holster, but I was on him before he could line it. I grabbed his hand holding the gun with my right hand, used my left hand to push his elbow towards his body, then pulled his gun outwards and downwards with a forceful jerk. His forearm got bent at an angle the human body isn’t designed for. The man cried out as the elbow gave way, tendons and ligaments
snapping.
While I was breaking his elbow, I also kicked hard on the inside of his knee with the wooden heel of my boot, forcing his knee to overstretch outwards, snapping his lateral collateral ligament. Break any of the four collateral ligaments supporting the knee and you take your opponent out of the game. The man began going down. His gun clattered onto the sidewalk. I kicked it behind me. Putting him down hadn’t taken more than three seconds.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Winona grab the gun.
“Get in the truck, Winnie. Key’s inside,” I shouted to her as I slammed the man’s head against the wall and turned to the other one, who was almost upon me.
That guy didn’t have a gun. The men must’ve thought they wouldn’t need much firepower to kidnap a woman half their size. Bad decision.
But the man did have a knife. And knives can be deadlier at close range than guns. It’s not difficult to grab a gun and disarm a man close to you. But grabbing a razor-sharp blade doesn’t really work. And things on the streets don’t go as in the movies. Street knifers don’t just stick out their knife hand, making it easy to block and disarm.
This guy was a pro. He kept his knife hand way out of my reach, holding out his other hand as he rushed at me, trying to grab my shoulder before plunging the knife into me. Had he been able to grab me, there wasn’t much I could’ve done other than getting stabbed.
But I don’t let people grab me. I break the ones who try doing that. I’ve had years of practice with the lowlifes of this world.
I needed to incapacitate the man before he could stab me. He was close. Many vulnerable body parts I could hit decisively at close range. Hit hard and end the thing before it really begins.
The man’s neck was close and very exposed. I punched hard on his neck, using a chisel fist strike, my fingers folded at their middle joint, transformed into three sharp poking devices— like wearing brass knuckles. The three finger joints drove into his Adam’s apple. As he sputtered and gasped, his face came forward. I hit him on the nose with the heel of my hand, driving it upwards, smashing the cartilage and bone of his nasal septum, turning it to a bloody pulp. He still held on to the knife and brought it forward, more as a reflex rather than a stabbing motion. It was easy to block. I grabbed his hand holding the knife, twisted it with a jerk that first broke his wrist and then his forearm, and kicked his legs out from under him at the same time. The man had lost consciousness before his head hit the sidewalk.
While the man was falling, I’d turned towards the next oncoming threat. The entire fight with the four men had lasted not more than twelve or maybe thirteen seconds. But it was enough time for the men in the blac
I ran into the alley behind me, stopped a few yards in, turned and took out my Glock from the holster at the back of my jeans. I stood facing the entrance to the alley, arms straight out in front of me, gun ready to fire.
I try to avoid killing. Not that I won’t if I have to. But not until I’ve assessed the threat level. That became clear a second later when the van screeched to a halt in front of the alley. The man who’d opened the sliding door had a Mini Uzi in his hand. But the sudden stopping of the van threw him slightly off balance. That half a second he needed to line it and pull the trigger saved me from getting drilled with 9 mm fire coming my way at sixteen rounds per second. I was aimed and ready. I let off three quick shots into the center of the man’s body. He fell backward into the van.
The threat wasn’t over yet. I could see two men in the van’s front cabin but had no idea how many men were in the back. They could still grab Winona and take off. I didn’t have the option to take cover. The best bet was to charge.
I ran towards the van, firing into the driver’s cabin, staying alert to any movement in the rear cabin. A hand holding an Uzi suddenly appeared from behind the sliding door. I dived to the ground a fraction of a second before the gun sprayed bullets, the man holding the gun firing blind. Most of the shots were flying high, not posing any real danger. Lying flat on the ground, I fired at the hand, hitting the gunman’s forearm. Because of the angle, the bullet entered below the man’s wrist, went diagonally through his forearm, and exited near the elbow. The gun fell to the ground as the shattered arm was quickly withdrawn.
The van lurched forward. I rose and raced after it, firing at the tires. As I hit the street, I found Winona doing the same. She’d opened the truck’s window and was letting the bullets rip. Nice shooting. We managed to blow out both rear tires of the van.
The van skidded and crashed into a parked car. It stopped at a crazy angle, blocking the entire road. I still wasn’t sure how many men were in the back cabin and how well they were armed. Winona’s earlier panic had turned into rage. She jumped out of the pickup, gun in hand, looking mad as hell, about to run towards the van.
“Easy, tiger. Guys in the van have
automatics,” I restrained her, pushing her back into the pickup.
“Assholes!” she shouted. “Why are these creeps after me, Axel? What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later, kiddo. But what’s up with your phone? It keeps going to voicemail,” I asked her as I picked the Mini Uzi that had fallen from the guy’s hand when I shot him. I got into the driver’s seat and moved the truck at a crawl towards the van. There wasn’t any movement from the van.
“A guy snatched my bag. I ran after him but… these dumb heels, you know… I ended up on this freaking ghost alley,” she replied, her voice breaking up.
“It was a trap. They’d planned it. But we got them. How about we give them a little bump?”
“Yeah, go for it,” she agreed, nodding furiously.
“Seatbelt on… hang on tight,” I said and floored the gas pedal. The truck shot forward and rammed into the side of the van, violently flinging all its occupants against its other end. The van skidded sideways a few yards, the tires leaving thick skid marks on the road. It teetered on the verge of toppling over for a couple of seconds but didn’t flip.
The guys inside the van had had enough. The driver opened the door and got out, holding his right arm up. His left arm was limp—he’d taken a bullet in the left shoulder. The driver was followed by a second man, holding his left arm up, the side of his head bloody and his right shoulder dislocated from crashing against the side door when I rammed the van.
I stayed inside the truck.
“You’ve two seconds to get flat on the ground before I drop you,” I snapped at them, motioning with my gun.
They complied immediately.
“What about the guys at the back? Should I ram them once more?”
The sliding door opened. One man got out, left hand held above him, right forearm raw and bloody from the bullet that had shattered it.
“Stay in the truck. Have your gun ready. Wait exactly three minutes and then call 911. I’ll have a word with these gentlemen until the cops arrive,” I said to Winona, handing her my phone.
She nodded.
I placed my Glock back into the holster at the back of my jeans, grabbed the Mini Uzi, and got out.
“She’s dying to put a bullet in you. Don’t give her a reason…,” I warned the two on the ground.
“Anyone else in the back?” I asked the man who’d gotten out of the back of the van.
“The guy you shot. I think he’s dead. Or will be soon,” the man replied, the searing pain from his shattered forearm coming through in his voice.
“You sure sound broken up about it… Open the back door.”
He opened it with some difficulty, with only one hand in working order.
“Step back,” I ordered.
When he stepped back towards the side of the van, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, pushed him in front of me, and looked inside the van.
There was just one guy inside, lying on the van floor. Not dead yet but would soon be. Three bullets had caught him in the middle of the chest. I doubted he would’ve survived even if an ER team was working on him.
I wouldn’t be losing much sleep either way. I’d seen something that convinced me he was better off dead. His tattoos narrated a deadly tale. He had a rattlesnake tattooed on his neck—a symbol for the Mexican SDC cartel. Stands for
Serpientes de Cascabel. Means rattlesnakes in Spanish. Adriel and I’d ended their meth operation in Nevada a month ago. In a town called Little Butte. I knew they’d be coming after us.
It was the other tattoos that disturbed me more. Straight lines ran along both forearms, with notches at regular intervals. His arms were scorecards of his kills. The man was a
professional killer. A sicario. A killing machine— conscience as alien a word to him as humanity.
There isn’t a cure for mad dogs. They’re best put down.
I had more pressing problems. The cops would be arriving soon. I knew downtown Denver was gridlocked at that hour. I had maybe five minutes. I needed information. Fast.
I figured the two guys lying outside the van weren’t heading the crew. I was also sure the four men lying broken on the sidewalk were hired local muscle. The guy I was holding would be the one to put the squeeze on.
“Who ordered the hit?” I asked him.
“What hit?” he replied in a surly tone.
I kicked his legs out from under him and pushed him face down onto the van’s floor. I got in, grabbed his collar, and dragged him inside. Then I stepped on his forearm—the one the bullet had shattered. The man screamed.
“Who ordered the hit?” I asked again.
“Wait… take it off, man… you’re killing me,” he pleaded, gasping with pain.
“Listen, pal, we both know you’re going to play ball. You aren’t paid enough to take the pain I’m going to give you otherwise,” I said, easing the pressure for a second before stepping hard on the arm again.
“Wait…,” he said, gasping with pain. “It was… narcos… Mexicans… this guy…,” he nodded towards the man who lay dying.
I already knew the hit came from the cartel.
“Why the girl?” I asked, easing the pressure of my foot.
“It’s a triple hit.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, you like pain? Should’ve just said so,” I said, increasing the pressure on his arm again.
“Wait… it’s you... and an Indian guy,” he answered, his voice breaking with pain.
“This wasn’t a hit. You were trying to grab her. Why the change of plan?”
“This guy came in yesterday... with a new plan. The girl was to be taken.”
My face hardened. I realized they were planning to grab Winona and use her as bait to draw me and Adriel out. Had she been taken; it would’ve been a fate worse than a bullet to the head.
“Who was giving the orders?” I asked him.
“Some cartel guy. This guy was getting the calls.”
