The Khan by Saima Mir (best thriller novels of all time .txt) 📗

Nowak’s voice from an office across the room; he was shouting in a language they didn’t understand. The door was slightly ajar and they could see the men packing the cash into bags, an urgency in their movements.

A delicious rush of coldness flowed through Jia as she reached for the door. Her mind was clear, calm and focused. The events that had led her to this point aligned and everything made sense. The sound of the riot rose, punctuated by the crack of fireworks, and she gestured to her men: it was time. They moved stealthily into the room. Bang, bang, bang! went the fireworks, coming closer and closer together. The Brotherhood didn’t have time to react. Idris was the first to pull the trigger, the dull thud of the bullet leaving the pistol through the silencer masked by the noise outside. He hit the target square in the back of his head, the man collapsing into a heap, his blood seeping through his blond hair and on to the oak floor.

Akram cowered in a corner of the room. ‘Please, I have small children!’ he begged Malik, who was towering over him. ‘I ask you for mercy.’ Malik froze, the reality of what he was about to do taking hold of him. He stepped back. Seeing him flinch, Jia moved her gun swiftly from Nowak’s head to Akram’s. The sound of a crack followed and his face crumpled like a concertina. Jia’s senses were heightened, the air around her cooler; it was like nothing she had felt before. She soaked it in.

Nadeem’s mark lay dead, his blood running along the grain of the floorboards and dripping through the cracks.

Nowak was the only man left standing. He faced his attackers, his hands in the air, blood spattered across his shirt and in his hair. He looked afraid, until Jia removed her mask, and then he smiled. For a man staring death in the face, he seemed very relaxed. ‘It’s you! How lovely to see you here. For a moment I thought I was about to die. But now I know it’s you, well…that changes things. After all, I already broke one Khan,’ he said.

Idris stepped forward, his arm outstretched, but Jia stopped him.

‘Let him finish,’ she said.

‘Yes, listen to the little Pakistani woman. You know this is a game for men, don’t you? But then again your brother, he couldn’t take it either. He begged me to stop. He cried like a child. Like a little boy. Benyamin Khan, son of the great Khan, begged me to let him die. See? Look, you’re angry, your judgement is clouded. Women think with their hearts and not their heads and that is why you’ll never be any good at this. You know, for me it was only business. It was never personal,’ he said. He waited for her to respond.

Something crashed outside the building and Jia flinched, only for a second, but it was enough for Nowak to make his move. He lunged forward, grabbing for the gun, his hands around hers, shoving her towards Nadeem and Idris. He roared with rage, hammering Jia’s jaw with his head, all the while holding on to the gun. She could feel the trigger cutting into her as he forced her finger on to it. BANG! The recoil propelled them both backwards, hard. Jia clutched for the corner of the desk to steady herself, as Nowak slipped on the blood that had poured out of his men and pooled on the floor. She looked up to see Idris slumped on the ground, Nadeem crouching beside him, Malik standing silent at the back of the room, his back against the wall. The gun was still in her hand.

Time slowed. The air cooled. She looked at Nowak staggering up from the floor. In the coming years, her cousins would recognise the look in her eyes and remember this as the first time they’d witnessed it.

‘Mr Nowak, everything is personal,’ she said, and she pulled the trigger. The bullet erupted square between his eyes and he fell backwards, his body hitting the wall behind him before thudding to the floor.

Bilal looked around for his friend Majid. He’d been getting in his car to go home that morning when his mother had called to complain about his wife again. He was tired of the constant arguing, the accusations and the emotional blackmail. He’d shouted at the old woman. She’d cried. He’d hung up the phone and called Majid to see if he was free for lunch. The crowd of Asian protestors was already heaving by the time Bilal reached the curry house. Someone knocked into him; he ignored it and carried on, trying to spot Majid in the sea of faces. The crowd continued to jostle him and Bilal’s agitation rose. ‘Get the fuck away from me!’ he’d said to the guy behind him. Hatred spewed out of him. Hatred for this street, for this city, for the people – this continuous shit that destroyed any hope of a future. Someone pushed him again. ‘Fucking watch it, mate!’

All around him men began to rage. Bottles and bricks, and whatever came to hand, were flung at the police wall. Their collective fury seeped into Bilal. A boy in a hoodie with a scarf wrapped around his mouth shoved him from behind. He fell forward, almost tripping over a bag that someone had left in the middle of the street. The stench of petrol rose up. As he steadied himself he noticed that the bag contained glass bottles and some kind of oil. He watched as five men gathered around a car and began to rock it back and forth before turning it over. Behind him a group of young boys cheered and raised their hands in victory. His anger rose and he considered picking up one of the bottles in the bag. But the police began to move forward in formation in an attempt to herd the men down the street.