Chapter 15: THE GYM — Part 1
The converted warehouse looked different in the harsh afternoon light.
I'd arrived at 2:00 PM, positioning myself in the alley behind Iron House Fitness with an hour to spare before Volkov's expected arrival. The fire exit was exactly where I remembered—metal door, no external handle, industrial hinges on the inside that would only open from within.
The dumpster provided decent cover. I crouched behind it, checking sight lines and escape routes for the twentieth time since reaching the alley. The loading dock to my left. The alley's two exits. The fire escape on the adjacent building that could provide emergency elevation if everything went wrong.
My phone showed 2:07 PM. Fifty-three minutes until Volkov's routine brought him to the gym.
If he still follows the routine. If that photo hasn't already changed everything.
I'd barely slept. The timer had counted down behind my eyelids all night, a constant reminder of the deadline pressing toward me. By morning, I'd convinced myself that waiting was more dangerous than acting. Every hour gave Volkov's people more time to identify me, more time to prepare countermeasures.
The gym was still the best approach. The locker room was still the vulnerability. The only thing that had changed was the timeline.
Ghost Mode. Get in, map the interior, get out. Then wait for Volkov and do it for real.
I circled to the front of the building first, staying on the opposite side of the street. The security camera above the entrance tracked its slow sweep—left to right, right to left, twenty seconds per cycle. A few patrons entered and exited through the glass door. Men, mostly. The serious weightlifter type.
No sign of Volkov's black Mercedes yet.
Good. Time for reconnaissance.
I returned to the alley and approached the fire exit. The door had no external handle, but it wasn't completely flush with the frame. A thin gap where weatherstripping had worn away. I could hear the muffled clang of weights from inside, the distant rhythm of someone's music bleeding through the walls.
Ghost Mode. Activate.
The cold washed through me. That familiar static-on-skin sensation as the ability took hold. The world didn't look different—no visual indicator that I'd become invisible to electronic surveillance. But I felt it. A certainty that cameras couldn't track me anymore. A brief window of technological invisibility.
[GHOST MODE: ACTIVE. DURATION: 238 SECONDS.]
Almost four minutes. Enough to get inside, map the locker room, and get back out before the cooldown trapped me inside without cover.
The front door would be faster than fighting with the fire exit. I walked around the building, pushed through the entrance, and stepped into Iron House Fitness.
The interior was exactly what I'd expected from the exterior—industrial, utilitarian, designed for serious lifters rather than casual fitness enthusiasts. Free weights dominated the main floor, arranged in careful rows with enough space between stations for the kind of heavy lifting that built functional strength. A few machines lined the walls. A boxing ring occupied the back corner, empty at the moment but showing signs of recent use.
The smell hit me immediately. Sweat and iron and chalk. The primal atmosphere of a serious training facility.
Maybe fifteen people working out. Men in tank tops or bare-chested, grunting through sets. Nobody looked at me twice. Just another guy coming to lift.
Human eyes can still see you. Act natural.
I grabbed a towel from the rack near the entrance—the gesture of someone who belonged—and walked toward the locker room like I'd done it a hundred times before. Confident posture. Direct path. No hesitation.
The locker room door swung open into a narrow corridor lined with gunmetal gray lockers on both sides. The smell of chlorine mixed with the gym's general funk—there must be a pool or hot tub somewhere nearby.
"—tomorrow night. Volkov wants extra security for the shipment."
Two voices. Russian accents. Coming from around the corner where the corridor opened into the main changing area.
I pressed flat against the lockers and listened.
"How many men?"
"Six. Maybe eight. Depends on what Moscow sends."
"The American one? The new supplier?"
"Da. Very careful, these Americans. They don't trust us."
"Smart. We don't trust them either."
Laughter. The sound of lockers opening and closing. Footsteps moving toward the showers.
Shipment tomorrow night. Extra security. Volkov will be distracted, moving assets...
The information was useful, but it didn't change my immediate plan. Tomorrow night was too far away. The photo I'd given that tracksuit kid was probably already making its way up the organization's chain of command.
[GHOST MODE: DURATION REMAINING: 147 SECONDS.]
I moved deeper into the locker room after the voices faded. The layout was straightforward—three rows of lockers, wooden benches between them, showers and toilets at the far end. An emergency exit in the back corner connected directly to the alley where I'd been waiting.
Perfect. Enter through the fire exit, catch Volkov at his locker, put him down, leave through the same door.
The corner unit closest to the showers showed signs of regular use—a better padlock than the standard equipment, a small rug placed on the floor beneath it for bare feet. Staff gossip I'd overheard on my first reconnaissance confirmed it: Volkov always used the same locker. Creature of habit.
[GHOST MODE: DURATION REMAINING: 89 SECONDS.]
Time to go.
I pushed through the emergency exit into the alley. The door swung shut behind me with a heavy click. No alarm sounded. No shouts of discovery. Just the ambient noise of Brooklyn traffic and pigeons cooing on the fire escape above.
[GHOST MODE: DEACTIVATED. COOLDOWN: 600 SECONDS.]
Ten minutes. I found my position behind the dumpster again and settled in to wait.
The cooldown felt longer than it was. Every second stretched as adrenaline cycled through my system with nowhere to go. My hands were already sweating against the Glock's grip. I wiped them on my jeans. Wiped them again. The nervous energy wouldn't dissipate.
This is different. The first time, you had surprise and a drunk loan shark. The second time, you had Chen's setup and enemies who didn't know you were coming. This time, it's just you and a trained killer who might already know someone's been watching him.
The thought of that photo kept intruding. The kid's casual confidence as he'd snapped pictures. The way he'd walked away like photographing surveillance operatives was just another part of his daily routine.
Maybe it is. Maybe Volkov's people are always watching for watchers.
I counted the cooldown seconds to keep my mind occupied. Three hundred. Four hundred. The numbers gave me something to focus on besides the fear.
At 2:48, the black Mercedes turned into the street.
[GHOST MODE: AVAILABLE.]
My pulse spiked. I pressed deeper into the shadow behind the dumpster, watching through a gap between the rusted metal and the brick wall.
The Mercedes pulled up to the gym's front entrance. Volkov stepped out first—same shaved head, same military bearing, same aura of contained violence that made the air feel heavier around him. He scanned the street with automatic threat assessment, eyes lingering for a moment on my alley before moving on.
He didn't see you. The dumpster's providing cover. Stay still.
One bodyguard followed. The younger one again—fire hydrant neck, hands loose at his sides, moving with the careful attention of someone who expected trouble and was prepared to meet it with violence.
The driver—a third man I hadn't seen during yesterday's surveillance—stayed with the vehicle. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the hood, watching the street.
Three total. One with the car, one following Volkov inside, one... where's the older guard?
The front door opened and closed. Volkov and his bodyguard disappeared into the gym.
I checked my phone. 2:52 PM. Ghost Mode was ready. The cooldown had completed three minutes ago.
Wait for him to reach the locker room. Wait for him to be alone. Wait for the bodyguard to step away.
The plan was simple. Simplicity was good in combat operations—fewer moving parts meant fewer things that could go wrong. Enter through the fire exit under Ghost Mode. Navigate to the locker room. Find Volkov. Put bullets in him. Exit before anyone could organize a response.
Seven rounds. One target. Done.
But simple plans also left less room for adaptation when everything went sideways. And everything always went sideways.
I counted to sixty. Let my breathing steady. Checked the Glock one more time—seven rounds in the magazine, one chambered, safety off. My hands had stopped sweating. That was either a good sign or a very bad one.
Move.
I approached the fire exit. The door opened smoothly—someone kept the hinges oiled—and I slipped into the locker room corridor.
Ghost Mode. Now.
The cold sensation flooded through me as the ability activated. The timer started counting in my peripheral vision.
[GHOST MODE: ACTIVE. DURATION: 240 SECONDS.]
Four minutes to find Volkov and kill him.
The chlorine smell was stronger inside. My shoes squeaked on the wet floor—too loud. I adjusted my gait, rolling heel to toe, the military quiet I'd learned in a previous life and never quite forgotten.
Voices ahead. Different ones this time—English with American accents, complaining about work schedules and weekend plans. Civilians. Gym members who had no idea what was about to happen in their locker room.
I pressed against the lockers and let them pass. Two men in workout clothes, towels over shoulders, heading toward the showers. They didn't glance in my direction.
[GHOST MODE: DURATION REMAINING: 198 SECONDS.]
The locker room opened up before me. Half a dozen men in various states of undress, moving between lockers and showers and toilets. Steam from the shower area clouded the air near the ceiling. The ventilation system hummed overhead, struggling to clear the humidity.
Volkov was in the corner. Exactly where he was supposed to be.
He stood at his locker with his back to the room, shirtless, muscles moving under scarred skin as he pulled workout clothes from the shelf. Alone for the moment. The bodyguard with the thick neck was nowhere in sight—probably securing the perimeter or checking the gym floor.
This is it. This is the moment.
I raised the Glock. Sighted on the center of Volkov's back. Finger tightening on the trigger.
Volkov turned.
Our eyes met across twenty feet of steam and concrete.
And in that frozen instant, I saw recognition flash across his face. Not of me specifically—but of what I was. What I represented. The threat assessment of a man who'd spent decades reading danger in micro-expressions and body language.
He knew.
The moment shattered.
Volkov moved first—faster than a man his size should be able to move, faster than the System's data had prepared me for. He didn't dive for cover or reach for a weapon. He attacked.
I squeezed the trigger twice. The shots were deafening in the enclosed space. One round caught his shoulder, spinning him slightly. The other went wide, sparking off the lockers behind him.
Then he was on me.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. We crashed into the lockers together, metal shrieking against metal. The Glock flew from my grip, clattering somewhere out of sight. His hands found my throat.
He's wounded. He's stronger. He's trained.
I couldn't breathe. The edges of my vision were going dark. His face was inches from mine—teeth bared, blood streaming from the shoulder wound, absolutely no fear in his eyes.
Just professional anger.
I stopped trying to break his grip and went for the wound instead. My thumb found the bullet hole in his shoulder and drove in deep.
Volkov screamed. His hands loosened for one crucial second.
I twisted free, gasping, scrambling on hands and knees toward where the Glock had fallen. Saw it under a bench. Lunged.
[GHOST MODE: DEACTIVATED.]
The timer had run out. I was visible to every camera in the building now.
But that didn't matter if I was dead.
My fingers closed around the Glock's grip just as Volkov's weight slammed into my back.
We rolled across the wet floor together, fighting for the weapon. His blood was everywhere—on my hands, my clothes, the tiles beneath us. He was weakening from blood loss but still dangerous. Still capable of crushing my throat if I gave him the chance.
I brought my knee up hard. Connected with his wounded shoulder.
He roared and released me long enough for me to roll clear.
[KILL WINDOW: 149 HOURS, 52 MINUTES.]
I raised the gun.
Volkov lunged.
The locker room door burst open.
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