Stone Army

by J. D. Weston

  “And did you get this man’s name?” asked Kane, as the doctor prepared for another attack.

  “No. But Foxtrot destroyed his house as you requested,” said Jones, hoping the positive news would counter the negative.

  “And?” said Kane, more interested in Farrow’s behaviour.

  “He searched the house for the vial. Found nothing.”

  “I’m guessing there’s more?”

  “The man is Harvey Stone,” said Jones. “Foxtrot found some ID. He’s just some local guy.”

  Farrow’s third head-butt split skin. A spatter of blood remained on the glass as the doctor pulled away.

  “Good. Make sure Foxtrot one is rewarded for his work. At least someone is switched on.”

  “Not possible, I’m afraid, sir,” said Jones.

  Kane’s head remained forward, but his eyes swivelled to find Jones taking a step back.

  “Stone killed him, sir.”

  “Find him,” said Kane. “Find him and kill him.”

  8

  No Quarter

  A surge of acid bile rushed from Gabriella’s stomach to her tongue; she rolled onto her side, opened her mouth and let it fall to the floor.

  The familiar warm tingle in her fingertips ran up her arms like the last reach of the incoming tide. A pulse of blood rushed through her body, leaving her pale skin prickling as she sucked in a lungful of air and rolled onto her back. A throb inside her head kept time with her heart, which began to increase as consciousness crept over her.

  Behind her eyelids, a bright light shone. It was enough for her to keep her eyes closed and let the pounding throb acclimatise. She lay back, controlling her breathing, as images from before unconsciousness flashed across her mind.

  The trees.

  The man.

  She gasped when she thought of the man she’d killed, and her hands flexed in response.

  Then that voice.

  Jones.

  The road, the horn and then…

  She sat up as her last memory came back and she gasped for breath.

  The bus.

  But there was no pain.

  She eyed her surroundings and found that she was sitting on a gurney in a white room. The clothes she’d been given by Harvey Stone were piled on a small chair to one side.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t be back here again.”

  Darkness crept to the edges of her vision, a hint at the sickness that was to follow.

  Voices in the hallway were muffled by the door but clear in Gabriella’s mind as her enhanced senses focused.

  Two men.

  Wearing boots.

  Not doctors.

  She pulled the sheet from her body and slid her legs off the bed. An angry, purple bruise ran from her chest to her thighs, six inches wide with yellow around the edges.

  An image of the bus moments before it had hit her flashed across her mind. As if to confirm her memory, a dull throb pulsed once in the centre of the bruise.

  There was no pain as her feet touched the linoleum floor, only trepidation.

  The voices grew louder. As Gabriella pulled on her clothes, the crackle of a two-way radio confirmed her suspicion. She snatched back the curtain that surrounded her bed and found a window with a view of the Mediterranean, a road, and a few small buildings. She counted the five floors to the ground but couldn't remember the lab being so high.

  Or the bed having curtains.

  A touch of the door handle teased her heightened senses in time for her to launch a chair at her visitors, which the first man took square in the face. He stumbled back as Gabriella tried to smash the window.

  But it was stuck.

  The second man barged into the room, stepping over his friend, and pointed his handgun. He raised the radio to his mouth, keeping the gun on Gabriella.

  “Charlie-two, this is Sierra-one. Asset has been located. She has a pulse.”

  He stared at Gabriella, keeping his distance as if she was some kind of wild animal. The radio crackled into life.

  “Sierra-one, this is Charlie-two. Good work. Terminate the asset.”

  He smiled at Gabriella.

  “Copy that, Charlie-two,” said the man into the radio. “With pleasure.”

  Three sidesteps was all it took for Gabriella to close the gap. She reached up, twisted the handgun, and two shots found the white plastered wall. Using her momentum, she planted her shoulder into the man’s stomach, driving forward until they both slammed into the wall.

  But the move hadn’t earned her any time. The man returned the attack with a left hook to Gabriella’s face while his gun was pinned to the wall above his head. The blow rocked Gabriella, but no pain found its way to her brain. Instead, she responded with a head-butt that flattened the man’s nose. A second blow cracked his eye socket. But before she could deliver the third, the first man rose beside her and slammed the butt of his pistol into her face.

  The shock knocked her across the bed, where she rolled and hit the floor. She slid beneath the curtains, searching for a weapon. But the two men moved fast. They snatched back the curtains and tore them from the rails then closed in either side of the gurney. One man on the right. One man on the left.

  In Gabriella’s heightened mind, possibilities flashed by. Take the bigger man on the right and escape through the door. Take the smaller man on the left, kill him fast, and then deal with the bigger man one-on-one.

  She stepped toward the window, the sunlight blinding her. But as her vision returned, a shape appeared behind the two men that changed everything.

  The hospital was a small five-story building painted white to match the surrounding neighbourhood of whitewashed houses and shops. A single entrance for ambulances was at the end of the short curved driveway. In a spot marked for emergencies only was a black SUV identical to the one Harvey had seen outside the police station and in the alleyway.

  Harvey parked his bike on the pavement and entered the building. The nurse behind the reception glanced up at him, noticed the blood on his leg and the dust on his jacket, and tried to catch his attention. But seeing the sign above her head that read traumatisme with a number five in a small blue circle beside it, he moved toward the two small elevators without needing her help. He stepped inside as the doors were closing, just catching sight of the security guard who had been summoned by the receptionist.

  The doors opened with a weak ping. One day a long time ago, it may have been loud and sustained but had tired from years of relentless use. Harvey stepped out into the corridor. He glanced left and right. To his right was a nurse’s station. To his left were a few small, private rooms. Harvey turned left, peering into each one as he passed. Each of the doors were closed except one at the end of the corridor. Behind it were the unmistakable sounds of a struggle taking place.

  Harvey stepped into the doorway.

  Two men had trapped Gabriella, each one approaching from either side of the hospital bed, moving with caution and closing her in against the window. Collecting a fire extinguisher from the wall in the hallway, and with no hesitation, Harvey slammed it into the back of the larger man’s head. He fell to the floor with ease. The smaller man to Harvey’s right stepped back to raise his weapon. But Harvey threw the fire extinguisher at his head then shoved the bed toward him, crushing him against the wall.

  “Shut the door,” said Harvey to Gabriella, who jumped into action. “Lock it.”

  A single twist of the gun disarmed the man and broke his index finger. Harvey released the magazine onto the floor and held the weapon out for Gabriella, who took it without question.

  Men began to bang on the door and shout in French. But Harvey ignored them. He dragged the bed out of the way and hoisted the smaller man to his feet. The man wore the same uniform as the intruder at Harvey’s house and the man in the alley: a simple black shirt with epaulettes, black cargo pants and black military boots.

  Harvey slammed the man’s head into the wall.

  “Cassius Kane,” said Har
vey. “Where can I find him?”

  But the man said nothing. He stared at the floor as if he hadn’t heard the question.

  Three more times Harvey slammed the back of his head into the wall.

  “Kane,” he said. “Tell me where I can find him.”

  “You won’t find him,” said the man.

  His eyes were squeezed shut and his hands reached up to hold the back of his head. But Harvey caught hold of his right hand, twisted his wrist and pushed it over the man’s head until he felt the crunch of his shoulder joint dislocating, followed by a satisfying scream of confirmation.

  The men outside began to force the door.

  “They’re going to break through,” said Gabriella. “Merde.”

  “Block the door,” said Harvey.

  “But we will be trapped.”

  “We’ll use the window. Just block the door.”

  “The window is locked. I tried it already,” said Gabriella, as she pushed the bed to the door and tucked the metal frame beneath the handle.

  Harvey grabbed the man by his collar.

  “This is your last chance. Where can I find Kane?”

  The man smiled up at him, dazed from the blows to the back of his head. Then he spat in Harvey’s face. But his laugh soon faded as Harvey lifted him from the floor, turned, then launched him head-first through the fifth-floor window.

  The window shattered and shards of glass rained down to the ground below.

  “Are you crazy? We are five floors up, Monsieur Stone,” said Gabriella, leaning against the bed with all her weight as the men outside tried to force their way into the room.

  Harvey peered down at the ground below. The man’s body lay spread-eagled on the concrete. A pool of red was forming by his head. A woman screamed and two nurses ran to his aid. To Harvey’s right, along the outside of the building, there was a narrow ledge in the brickwork, level with the bottom of the window frame, and another level with the top.

  He ducked back inside the room.

  “Are you coming or staying?” he asked.

  “What?” said Gabriella, eying the door and then Harvey, who stood with his foot on the window ledge ready to climb through it. “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”

  “The man that kidnapped you, what was his name?”

  “Cassius Kane,” replied Gabriella.

  “Can you take me to him?”

  The effort against the outside of the door increased, and the entire frame began to shift in the wall as a fire axe attacked the door.

  The radio in Harvey’s pocket, which he had stolen from Freddie, crackled into life once more. So did the radio on the belt of the large man who’d received the fire extinguisher in his face. But this time, instead of the tinny voice with the London accent, it was a well-spoken man, mature and with an air of authority.

  “Sierra-one, come back,” said the voice.

  Harvey looked across at Gabriella, who held the bed against the door as the axe broke through the wood. Two security guards peered through the splintered hole. Harvey pulled the radio from his pocket.

  “Sierra-one, come back. This is Charlie-one.”

  “Is this Cassius Kane?” said Harvey, then he released the push-to-talk button and waited for the response. He remained calm and composed despite Gabriella’s frantic efforts to hold the door.

  “You must be Harvey Stone,” said Kane after a pause. “You’re becoming quite a nuisance, Mr Stone.”

  “Ditto,” said Harvey.

  “You have something that belongs to me.”

  Harvey didn’t reply. He looked up at Gabriella, who said nothing but stared wide-eyed at the radio.

  “Why don’t you bring me what’s mine and you can go about your life?”

  Harvey stared at the girl, who pleaded with her eyes and shook her head.

  “Do you know where to find him?” asked Harvey.

  Gabriella nodded.

  A crowd was gathering around the body on the ground outside and the door splintered again as the axe came through once more, widening the hole as two more men fought to get into the room.

  But Harvey remained calm, considering his options.

  “You’re making a big mistake, Mr Stone,” said Kane. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with here. Bring me what’s mine and you walk. Enough blood has been shed.”

  Harvey depressed the button on the radio, silencing the static.

  “Negative, Kane,” said Harvey. “It’s you who doesn’t know who you’re dealing with. You just destroyed everything I own. I’m coming for you, and I won’t stop until I kill you.”

  “Who is this man?” asked Kane, and he threw the radio across the room. “He’s clearly not just some local guy.”

  “He’s taken down five of my men,” said Jones, as Doctor Farrow planted his head into the glass. Blood leaked from several wounds on his forehead, and he gazed like an old drunk through the window at Kane and Jones. “Local police won’t help anymore. They say it’s too hard to explain a murder in the town in broad daylight. If there’s more trouble, they’ll be forced to get involved and make arrests.”

  “Cowards. They’re just afraid because the prime minister is on his way. Any other day of the year and they’d be lining their corrupt pockets.”

  “We’re on our own, sir,” said Jones. “And either this guy has help, or he’s-”

  “He’s what?” snapped Kane.

  “I don’t know. Ex-military? Special forces?”

  “Jones, do I need to remind you that you have a whole team of ex-special forces men and this guy is picking us off like they’re old grannies.”

  “I’m aware of my team’s capabilities, sir,” said Jones.

  “But you’re not aware of his capabilities. Know your enemy, Jones. The first rule of war.”

  “We can’t find anything on him, sir,” said Jones. “We’ve checked the police databases. We even had the local police check Interpol.”

  “Military?” said Kane.

  “Nothing, sir. He doesn’t exist.”

  “So who killed five of your men?” said Kane. “Who is it that has my vial? I want him dead, whoever this Stone is. I want his head on a stick and I want my vial back.”

  As if in response to Kane’s mention of the vial, the doctor head-butted the partition once more, his breath fogging the bloodied glass.

  “We’re doing everything we can, sir. I’ve got all teams out looking for him.”

  “All teams? And what happens if he chews through those like he has the rest?”

  Jones remained silent, unable to find a suitable answer.

  “When the prime minister drives into Saint-Pierre, I want all bases covered. If we can pull this mission off, we’ll be set for life. We’ll have every government on the planet bidding for our services.”

  “I’ll pull three teams, sir,” said Jones. “Alpha team, Bravo team and Tango team. Alpha team will cover the entrance to the town. Bravo team will monitor the ambush site. Tango team will be the eyes in the sky in the tower.”

  “You’re missing the point,” said Kane. “Without the vial, even if we do pull this off, we have nothing to make us stand out from the crowd. We’ll just be another rogue team of hired guns, and if Stone carries on the way he is, we won’t even be a team. It’ll be you and I standing there with our dicks in our hands begging for work.”

  “We don’t need the drug, sir. I’m sure we can pull this off.”

  “Of course we can pull it off, Jones. It’s not exactly a difficult mission. But I offered the men a future. I offered them a chance to clear their names, a chance at success and honour. That’s what soldiers fight for, Jones. Honour. And in return for honour, they offer loyalty. That’s how it works, Jones. That’s how the system has functioned since the Romans and it’s no different now.”

  “Loyalty isn’t a question, sir. Every one of my men is loyal to a tee.”

  “Apart from the ones that Stone has hit already?”

  Jones said no
thing in response. Instead, he cocked his head to one side. Kane’s lip curled at the mannerism he had always detested.

  “Presuming we have enough men to pull off the mission, presuming we are successful, and presuming we get the vial back then we might just have a future, Jones. We might be able to offer the men a taste of honour. And they might, in return, offer us prolonged loyalty. Presuming the stars align and the heavens shine down on us, we might just get another job. And if I’m right, Jones, which I often am, we’ll take that vial, and we’ll make enough of it to last a lifetime. Our men will be unstoppable and everyone will be calling us. And you know what that means?”

  “Money?”

  “Blank cheques, Jones,” said Kane. “That’s when we get to write ourselves a blank cheque. What’s that, Mr President? You’re having trouble with the Columbians and their drug enterprise? Don’t you worry. We’ll take care of it. Oh, hello, Mr Minister of Defence. You need a village taken out in deepest, darkest Afghanistan and you can’t send your boys in because you don’t have one-hundred-percent proof it’s full of terrorists? Don’t worry. Our boys will take care of it for you. The same will happen with the United Kingdom, that very same country that trained us and nurtured us from young boys into the men we are now. The same country that took the best years of our lives, and took the best we had to give, then tossed us aside with shame after one simple mistake. You watch, Jones. If we can pull this off, you watch those bastards come crawling when they can’t launch an attack because of some bullshit peace deal they made fifty years ago. When they’re so tied up in the politics they can’t see the wood for the trees, we’ll be the ones they come to, Jones. We’ll be the ones they call for help. And who knows? When that time comes, I might even offer them a free deal. A coupon, if you like. We’ll go in and sort out their mess. We’ll clear up what they can’t. In return, we’ll have our dirty, dishonourable discharges relinquished. Every one of your men will walk the streets with his head held high, Jones. Can you imagine that? Imagine the honour. Imagine the loyalty.”

  “It’s a dream I have every day, sir,” said Jones.