Apex

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Max didn’t feel the powder singe his face.

  A keening wail arose in his right ear, howling like a winter storm. Pain and deafness heated Max’s anger past the boiling point. He sprang at Wilde, who had recovered enough to sight in on Max.

  This time Max moved quicker. He grabbed Wilde’s gun arm in both hands, slammed into the man. Bowled over, they fell in a heap of flailing, twisted limbs. Max rolled on top of Wilde, slammed his gun arm to the floor, but Wilde again proved tougher than he appeared. He couldn’t fathom how this seventy-five-year-old man could so resiliently shrug off his attacks.

  The gun fired again, and again struck nothing important.

  Wilde rolled, threw a wicked left-handed punch.

  Max mostly avoided it, though a knuckle or two caught his chin and snapped his head around. He responded by driving a fist into Wilde’s face.

  That didn’t even faze him.

  Delivering the blow had cost Max a hand on Wilde’s gun arm, which he quickly seized in both hands before Wilde could shoot. Max forced his opponent’s elbow backward. That got the desired effect; Wilde unleashed a guttural grunt and dropped the pistol. Max continued working the joint backward.

  Wilde bit into Max’s right forearm, forcing him to recoil.

  Max rolled away. As he sprang to his feet he glanced about. Both his submachine gun and the pistol lay out of reach. He drew the combat knife he’d taken from one of the guards and leapt at Wilde, whose grasping fingers reached for the pistol. Max dropped his elbow on Wilde’s throat as he landed.

  Nothing broke or crunched, to Max’s astonishment, but the blow left Wilde gagging and gasping for air. His grab for the gun terminated as he attempted to fend off Max.

  Now fully in command of the fight, Max straddled Wilde and slashed at his throat.

  Though still gagging, Wilde knocked the first blow aside, then reached up to gouge Max’s eyes.

  Max struggled to maintain control as Wilde clawed at his face and bucked beneath him like an enraged bull. He stabbed for Wilde’s heart, but his blade impaled Wilde’s forearm instead.

  Wilde’s bellow boiled up from deep in his bowels, yet he sounded more pissed than pained.

  Certain that he finally had Wilde where he wanted him, Max plunged the knife toward his throat. Somehow, a hand diverted Max’s wrist at the last instant, sparing Wilde’s throat from the blade.

  The strength in Wilde’s arm flagged the tiniest bit. Max needed no other opening. Determined to have his due, he stabbed for one of Wilde’s strange amber eyes.

  A miss, the blade cut deep, slicing skin right off his cheek.

  “What the fuck?” Max shouted in utter shock when he saw thick, purple-cast green scales gleaming beneath the blood, which, not surprisingly, had an acidic quality to it.

  Wilde roared, put a knee in Max’s gut and a foot in his crotch, then the world turned, bright and fluorescent.

  Flipped over, Max landed hard on his tailbone, raising even more excruciating pain. He rolled and lurched to his feet.

  Wilde stood there grinning, half lizard and half man. Though the pistol now lay directly at Wilde’s feet, he made no move to retrieve it.

  “I thought so,” Max said. “But it won’t save you, Wilde.”

  “Grutik!” Wilde shouted, his voice now several octaves lower. “My name is Grutik!”

  “Can’t be stopped...” Josh muttered in the sudden silence. He then shrieked in the voice of a schoolboy, “Grutik can’t be stopped!”

  A sound like sodden canvas being ripped apart snapped Max’s attention back to Grutik, who had torn the remaining skin from his face to reveal the reptilian scales beneath. “I will rule.” He growled with savage glee. “And you shall be my servant.”

  Max drew his pistol. “Just fucking die already.”

  Grutik sprang the instant Max fired, taking a bullet in the gut that didn’t stop his hurtling momentum as he lowered his shoulder and plowed into Max. They slammed backward into the wall.

  Even as all the wind gusted from Max’s lungs, he found himself flying across the room to smash into the bars of Josh’s cell. As he stood gasping, clinging to the bars to keep from falling, Josh stuck his face into Max’s and cried over and over again, “Can’t be stopped, can’t be stopped, can’t be stopped!”

  Somewhat recovered, Max turned from Josh—who now cackled as if he were the mad scientist—to confront Grutik, whom he found standing right behind him. A powerful backhand struck Max across the face, snapped his head around, and sent him spinning into the corner. He dropped his gun along the way, yet still held the knife in his left hand.

  “You are nothing!” Grutik growled as he slowly advanced.

  So dizzy from pain and blood loss, Max nearly collapsed.

  Grutik reached up, grabbed a handful of blond hair, and ripped the remaining skin from his skull. The hole in his gut had already stopped bleeding. “Our kind have ruled the galaxy for eons. And now we shall finally retake this planet, place the yoke of slavery back on humanity, and put the recalcitrant to the sword!”

  “Now that the kid has taught you how. You know, you’ve got quite a vocabulary for a lizard.” And I talk a lot of shit for a dead man.

  “Because I am your superior in every way. Now, relinquish your knife and take your place at my feet.”

  “You should get some alligator dentures to match your face.”

  Grutik’s chuckle sounded like a mummy’s cough. “I’ll make you my jester, Ahlgren.”

  “The only joke I see is you.”

  Having gathered what little strength remained to him during Grutik’s preening strut, Max launched himself at the reptilian abomination, feinting high but attacking low with the combat knife.

  There was no fooling Grutik, however. With grace and agility he caught Max’s knife arm and twisted it behind Max’s back. Grutik shoved Max across the room like a human cannonball. His journey ended when he tripped over Heat’s corpse and fell to the floor, sliding the last couple of feet into the corner by the workstation.

  Max almost agreed with Josh, who paced his cell while repeating his mantra. Has to be a way... He shook his head, groggy, and started to rise.

  Behind Max a thick electrical cord ran from the ceiling to the outlet next to the workstation. He backed toward the wall. With both hands behind his back, he felt with the left and held the knife in his right. “Still not sold, Grutik.” He shook his head. “You suck at making slaves too.”

  “Then die like a sheep.” As fast and dexterous as the dinosaurs he’d created, Grutik went from zero to thirty in no seconds flat, the charge intended to finish off Max.

  Max cowered in the corner like a beaten man. Wait for it! Grutik proved hard to time, but Max thought he had the hang of him now. I’ve killed tougher than you.

  The combat knife came alive with a brief jolt of electrical current. As it shot up Max’s arm, his grip slackened on the knife.

  No matter.

  With his left hand, Max ripped the severed cord from the wall and jammed the live wire into Grutik’s chest.

  While Grutik was tough enough to shrug off a bullet, the electric shock staggered him in his tracks, disrupting his charge. He plowed into Max with a good head of steam but not the tremendous force he might have.

  Having finally fazed mighty Grutik, Max drove the combat knife deep into his belly, forcing the blade upward under his ribs. Grutik didn’t yell or groan from the stabbing, only a slight gasp told Max he’d felt it.

  Finish him!

  “You want fries with that shiv?” Max asked and jammed the cord’s sparking end into Grutik’s mouth.

  The lizard king twitched and seized, fell to the side, and crashed into the wall. He slid to the floor a moment later. Grutik wouldn’t stay down long; he was already recovering, shaking his head as though awakening from a knockout blow.

  Max
ripped more cord free from the wall, bent down to face Grutik. “I don’t think you’re done yet.” He stuck the cord into Grutik’s eyeball.

  Finally the monster howled as he popped and twitched. Electric current blasted through every neuron, frying every synapse. The sheen of blood, covering his scaly head, congealed and steamed as Max shoved the cord deeper into his eye socket.

  Find that brain; kill this motherfucker!

  Josh howled in what sounded like grief, “Grutik! Grutik! Grutik can’t be stopped!”

  “I beg to differ.” Max pulled the cord from Grutik’s blackened, smoking eye socket. His head steamed; his body had gone limp. Max felt his neck for a pulse. Nothing.

  He felt very tired despite his triumph. “Enervated, as you might say,” he informed dead Grutik.

  He’d have no respite anytime soon. I’ve got to get them out of here. He removed a ring with several key cards from Grutik’s belt, then rose, and checked his watch: 1636. He was running out of time.

  Josh carried on in his cell, wailing like a spoiled brat denied candy in the supermarket checkout line.

  I can’t do this, he realized as he listened to Josh and looked down at Heat’s body. He knelt next to Heat, closed her eyes one final time. “I won’t fail you again.”

  He wanted to carry her out of the compound, bring her home for a proper burial. She deserves a grave after working so hard to dig it. That would be impossible. Josh remained top priority, and he wasn’t going anywhere under his own power. I’ll have to knock him out and carry him. He might run off or do something crazy otherwise.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Heat. “But your story will be told.” He removed her backpack and rifled through it, pocketing a couple of memory sticks for her cameras along with the photo of Judge Gauge standing next to the hanging Runner. The camera she’d dropped when Wilde shot her lay nearby. Max slung it around his neck and prepared to depart.

  “C-c-c-can’t be stopped!” Josh insisted, tears gleaming in his glaring, unblinking eyes when Max strode to the bars.

  Could have done without this. As he began trying the key cards, Max considered various, gentle methods he might use to subdue Josh.

  27

  Max had Josh, quite unconscious, slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Christ, it’s like carrying a baby hippo. He ascended the final steps on the spiral stair. Normally, carrying someone as emaciated as Josh wouldn’t have been difficult, but his numerous and grievous injuries made it a herculean task. He held Josh securely behind the knees with his left arm, his sleeve cuff riding high and keeping his watch exposed. The second counter seemed to advance in quantum leaps.

  1647. You might just make it.

  “Ahlgren calling Carter, over,” Max said into his headset upon reaching the library.

  He responded immediately. “Swift here. Where the hell are you? Over.”

  Max crossed the library, bound for the kitchen. “In the house. Objective secured, I’m coming out. Rendezvous behind house, over.”

  “Acknowledged, over.”

  “Perimeter secured? Over.”

  “Affirmative, all resistance destroyed. Zero casualties, over.”

  “Roger that, Ahlgren out.”

  Max checked the hallway outside the library before proceeding. Grutik was dead, but none of his minions would know that, and Max doubted the reptilian creations would care. He could be easily killed if one of them caught him in such a compromised situation. He grasped the UMP40 in his right hand, but any sort of rapid movement would prove impossible with Josh on his shoulder.

  Yet he encountered no one on his way to the kitchen and the rear exit. The house was eerily still, deathly quiet. If I had time—and no kid to carry—I’d leave this place in ruins.

  At 1650 he departed through the back door and stepped onto the well-manicured lawn. The wide expanse of grass offered no cover but for a statue of two cherubs at the center of a round pool a couple of feet deep. At other times the cherubs had spit arcing streams of water to the delight of Wilde’s psychotic guests, but now they stood dormant. He lay Josh down in the shadow of the low wall surrounding the pool, then crouched next to him with his submachine gun ready. His own team or hostile forces might approach from any direction, so Max kept his head ever turning, eyes on continuous watch.

  Meanwhile, his pains coalesced into a united front of throbbing aches and sharp, icepick stabs that occasionally made him flinch. Stay sharp... just a few more minutes. They would be long minutes indeed without any action to keep his mind off the pain.

  As if God himself had felt Max’s agony, a distraction presented itself in the form of a French jeep rounding the corner of the house at high speed, throwing up a rooster tail of dirt and grass in its wake. The truck straightened out and drove right for the fountain, where Max crouched behind the pool’s low wall and waited to take it out. Just as he was about to squeeze off a burst, the driver waved from the side window. Max staid his trigger finger while the jeep slowed.

  The driver wore jungle camo as opposed to black. At first Max thought the driver and lone occupant must be Otto, yet he saw another familiar face when the truck pulled up.

  Cleghorn.

  Max kept his gun on the driver as he stood. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “No time to explain,” Cleghorn barked.

  “Bullshit. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t waste you for selling me out.”

  “Because without me you won’t get off this island. Shit’s complicated, Ahlgren, but I can explain.”

  “Yeah? Well then get to it; my finger’s feeling itchy.”

  Cleghorn shook his head in exasperation. “I pointed the way for you in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the house. The mysterious man in jungle boots. “And now I’m getting you out. This place is gonna blow sky high in about fifteen minutes.”

  Max believed him yet laughed nonetheless. “Is that why you’re here? Damage control? Gotta clean up the scene so the Foreseers aren’t implicated?”

  Cleghorn’s eyes wandered to the jungle tree line at Max’s back. “Here come your boys. I’ll take all of you along. There’s a chopper waiting at the airstrip.”

  Max shook his head. “No thanks. We have our own bird coming in about...” Max checked his watch. “Seven minutes. So fuck you very much and be glad you found me in a forgiving mood.” And low on ammunition.

  At mounting bootsteps Max turned his head. The team had nearly reached him. Otto and Flint led the way ahead of the lumbering Swift, who still wielded two Uzis.

  Cleghorn also watched them come, squinting at the team, a probing look. “Any room for me on your bird?”

  Max laughed in his face. “Sorry, pal, we’re all booked up.”

  “Then I guess I’m outta here. I’ll catch up with you back in Washington. Believe me, this isn’t what it seems to—”

  “Can that bullshit. Now get the fuck outta here before I change my mind and spread your guts all over this lawn.”

  Cleghorn raised a placating palm. “Not a problem. Can your men make a hole?”

  Max’s team stood blocking the truck’s path.

  With five weapons now trained on Cleghorn, his facial muscles suddenly went slack. “Oh fuck—”

  Swift’s Uzis burped like twin chainsaws as they spat bullets through the truck’s windshield. Cleghorn, already hit several times, floored the truck and drove for Swift, who stepped aside and kept firing until his magazine emptied after a couple of seconds. Otto opened fire after the vehicle took off, though Flint and Max did not. Riddled with bullets, the truck swerved violently and toppled over onto the driver’s side, engine smoking, wheels still revolving.

  “What the fuck was that all about?” Max asked Swift. “I don’t recall ordering you to open fire.”

  “He’s a fuckin’ traitor; that’s what it’s about. Trust me, I worked with him on mor
e than one occasion.” The empty magazines from Swift’s smoking Uzis fell to the grass. He reached to his belt for two more mags.

  The answer satisfied Max, who knew the allegation to be true.

  Are you certain? Maybe he was really on our side in some way or another, one of Marklin’s guardian angels. Thanks to Swift, Max would probably never know. Whatever. He had greater worries at the moment than Cleghorn’s motives and subsequent murder.

  “We got a bird?” Flint asked.

  “Yeah,” Max said. “Duke should be here in about five minutes.”

  “Perfect landing spot,” Otto said. “We bagged a couple more bad guys in the woods, but I think the rest took off. We shouldn’t be bothered.”

  “Not by enemy maybe, but this place is set to blow. We need to find another LZ.”

  “There’s a cliff with a sheer drop to the sea over in that direction,” Flint said, pointing past the wrecked truck. Swift circled the vehicle slowly, ready to pop a few more into Cleghorn if he’d somehow survived.

  Doubt it. That thing’s shot up like Bonnie and Clyde’s death car.

  “Let’s move for it, then.” Only five minutes remained to get into position and mark the LZ with smoke to signal Duke.

  Max bent to grab Josh.

  “I can take him,” Otto offered. “You’re way too fucked up to be carrying him around.”

  Max shook his head. “I’ve got him; he’s my responsibility. But I could use some help picking him up.” Flint and Otto grabbed Josh and laid him over Max’s shoulder. “How far to this cliff?” Max asked as they moved out.

  Flint answered, “Not very, a couple hundred yards or so.”

  “Sure you got him?” Max asked Swift as they passed the jeep, bound for the jungle.

  “Yeah, he’s just a bad memory now.” Swift spit a stream of tobacco juice. “Where you headed?”

  “To the cliff you guys found,” Max said. “Tag along or you’ll miss your ride.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice. Seen enough of this lizard-ridden shithole.” He fell in at the rear of the group.