Bring Him Back by Scott Mariani Read Free Book Online

He felt the serrations engage in the cylinder. Just one twist, and he’d be in.
    But just as the lock was about to open, the side door of the van parked at the kerbside slid open with a scrape and a clang. Three dark figures piled out and instantly raced across the pavement to the steps of the building. Figures clutching impact weapons.
    Ben instinctively ducked the object that came slicing towards him. The tapered aluminium shaft of the baseball bat swooshed through empty air where his head had been half a second earlier, and smashed into the stained glass window panel on the door, instantly setting off a high, keening alarm.
    ‘That’s just great,’ Ben said. But he couldn’t afford to worry about that now. The strike that had just been aimed at him would have killed him if he hadn’t moved fast. And that was upsetting. So was the sight of the knife in the hand of one of the other attackers.
    At times like these, Ben didn’t have to think about what to do. Thinking was too long-winded a process. Thinking got you killed. So he simply reacted. Fast. Faster than anything any of the three had ever seen before, or could even have imagined.
    In less than a second, he’d gained control of the thick end of the baseball bat and jabbed the handle end hard and fast towards its wielder, aiming at the strip between the eyeholes of the ski mask. The round pommel of the bat hammered into the bridge of the guy’s nose with a soft crackling crunch and sent him sprawling backwards down the steps, knocking down the man behind him. The third attacker managed to dodge out of the way and came at Ben with the knife. Ben saw it coming, that slim little four-inch blade glittering like a tongue of flame under the streetlight as it darted towards his stomach.
    With his back to the door and nowhere to retreat, he twisted aside; the knife missed him and the force of the stab sent its sharp tip thunking into the wood. Before the man could wrench the blade free, Ben had broken his wrist. Then, without hesitation, he grasped the collar of the man’s jacket and drove his head so hard into the iron railing alongside the steps that the bars bent.
    Ben let him collapse in an unconscious heap, plucked the knife out of the door and turned to face the other two, who’d picked themselves up. The one with the smashed nose was unsteady on his feet and pouring blood from under his mask. The other was brandishing his bat but looking much less sure of himself now that it was all on him to finish the job. Ben saw the fear in his eyes, and knew it was over. With barely a glance at their stricken comrade, the two of them retreated quickly to the van. The uninjured one leapt into the driver’s seat, twisted the ignition and hit the gas. The van took off with a wheel-spinning screech and a roar, and went snaking wildly off up the street.
    The alarm went on keening, shrill and insistent. Ben’s plan was already blown – now he had just a short time to press some truth out of his remaining attacker. ‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said, slapping him hard about the face and shaking him. The man’s eyes fluttered groggily open in the holes of the ski mask.
    ‘Nice to know who your friends are, hmm?’ Ben said to him as the escaping van skidded round the corner out of sight. As the man put up a half-hearted struggle, Ben kicked him all the way down the steps, hauled him roughly upright, slammed him hard up against the wall and ripped the mask off his head. He was about thirty. Crew cut, brutish features, scarred cheek. ‘They find you in the pages of a comic book?’ Ben said.
    Lights were coming on in the residential part of the street as the alarm began to draw attention. Time was getting shorter by the instant, and Ben wasn’t going to waste words. The guy gasped in terror as the edge of the blade pressed against his windpipe with just enough pressure to break the first layer of skin. The broken wrist and fingers were all but forgotten now. He looked into Ben’s