The large figure stepped out of the shadows, lifted the Colt 38 Super and cocked it, all in one simple efficient movement. He held it out in front of his massive frame, the bright, stainless-steel five-inch barrel twinkling in the dim light from above. The weapon looked small and insignificant in his huge rugged hand and he held as steady as a rock.
‘Good evening ladies,’ he said with an unmistakable South African accent. The six men turned simultaneously and faced the large square-jawed giant. He stood six inches over six feet, with massive shoulders that threw a crawling dark shadow on the floor. It made him look more imposing than he needed to be.
‘I would like to thank you boys for bringing these weapons into the country and saving us the trouble. I’ve heard tell the British import controls are getting harder to evade every day.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ said the small, overweight man.
‘Let me introduce myself. My name is Demarco Salis. My friends call me Marco, but you shower of third world retards will call me Mr Salis. Now, my friends and I are going to invest a little time in your country and we are going to relieve you of these weapons.’ He lifted his hand and gestured into the surrounding darkness. Another 9 shadowy figures stepped out of the gloom.
‘This is a complete bag of shit, asshole. You can’t come in here and just take this equipment. Have you any idea who the fuck this all belongs to?’ It was the last words the small man ever spoke. A half smile tried to break onto Demarco’s face but it was forced back as a hatred born in hell itself scrambled suddenly to the surface. Demarco’s men had seen this before and to a man they took half a step back. The colt exploded into life and in almost the same second, the little overweight man felt his groin erupt. Spatters of blood mixed and pieces of flesh flew out from the front of him as he buckled, and fell hard onto his knees. Demarco strode over to the bleeding man and as he did so, he casually tossed his pistol to his right. Brooks, a small, bright-eyed thirty-year-old caught the weapon and locked his arms immediately into the aiming position. Demarco gripped the man around the neck with his left hand and squeezed like a steel vice. He lifted the trembling man off his knees and, pulling the eight inch long fisherman’s knife from his inside pocket plunged it deep into his captive’s stomach. The molybdenum stainless-steel blade cut through flesh the way it had been designed. The man groaned as Demarco pulled the blade all the way up, through his chest to his throat. It moved easily, cutting a very fine incision, deep into his breastbone, and up towards his face. A gurgling sound began to emanate from somewhere close to his throat and suddenly, the other five men made a grab for the weapons on the steel tables. In the time it took for them to reach out, Demarco was on them. He slashed and punched with both hands like a terrier working in a barrel of swamp rats. He was a fearsome fighter and waded into them without the slightest hint of fear. Jaws broke easily and flesh was torn open to spill bright red blood all around, like a modern day art exhibition. The dying men were all killers too, but had never come up against an opponent like Demarco before. This wasn’t a job to him; he killed like it was his life’s passion. The warehouse became a complete bloodbath. He cut the head off his final victim and held it high in the air like a trophy. Brooks took another half step back into the shadows, turned to face the gloom and threw up.
Demarco was a huge man with a deep psychotic fascination in taking people to the very edge of death, looking deep into their eyes and pushing them over. Finally, still holding the dismembered head high in the air, he plunged the knife deep inside the right eye socket. With a flick of his massive hand he launched the bloody appendage towards the massacre on the floor. It rolled under a table and made small circles in someone else’s pool of congealing blood. Demarco stared at the bloodstained knife in his hand. It had worked well today and deserved to be his most prized weapon. Without stopping he wiped the forefinger of his left hand up its full length, turned the finger towards his face and as his eyes opened wider he placed it into his mouth. His lips closed and he lapped at it like a kitten on a bowl of milk.
‘Still warm’, he said when he had completed his ritual,
‘Just how I like it.’
The assembled group didn’t really know what was going to happen now they had arrived in the United Kingdom but they did know that Demarco always had something planned. And he always kept it to himself. They had discovered that as they had moved through Europe with him over the last two years. Together, they had battled with the Croatian underworld, fought their way through Bosnia and even tangled with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The war-torn countries all had different factions who were in constant conflict with each other and it made easy pickings for a well trained group. Now that they had arrived in Britain, and had armed themselves, it was going to be a new and different battle. There was no conflict here to hide inside. No turf wars to infiltrate and disrupt while they took whatever they wanted. It would be difficult, but not impossible. They all knew that whatever they were doing here would be illegal. And they knew that with a leader as brutal, and devoid of any kind of social conscience as Demarco Salis was, that people would die. It would be dangerous but it would also make them money, lots of money.
Demarco had arrived and people here were going to suffer.