Omega: A Jack Sigler Thriller cta-5

by Jeremy Robinson

  I got you now, you son of a bitch.

  She raised her rifle, only to have her position peppered with bullets from the ruins to her left. She dropped to the ground, and rolled in the sand, trying to take cover behind a nearby rock. She could see a literal swarm of black-clad men emerging from the ruins. These weren’t mercenaries, they were a private army. Bullets rained down all around her, punching divots in the sand until one of the shots found her calf.

  She cried out, as the bullet found its way between her armored plates. Blood oozed warmly over her skin.

  She curled into a fetal position and began removing the armor on her calf to get at the wound. When the plates and foam pieces were off, she used her knife to slice open her black BDU pants leg. The wound was mostly into meat in the back of her calf, and she didn’t think any bone had been hit.

  She shredded the pants with the blade of the knife, and then cut a thin strip, that she shoved into the hole in her calf, pushing it in with her pinky finger and wincing and grinding her teeth the whole time. Finally, she wrapped another strip around the wounded leg and tied it off.

  When she looked back up, with her knife in hand, she saw a mercenary standing over her, his rifle pointed at her head. He had a full beard, and the sleeves of his BDU jacket had been rolled up sloppily. One of his arms was covered in dried blood.

  She pulled her knife arm back, prepared to throw the blade up at the man. He stepped back and brought the AK-47’s stock tightly into his shoulder and aimed.

  She threw the knife, and as a buzzing sound filled her ears, the man squeezed the trigger of the rifle, unleashing a torrent of bullets.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Tennis Court, Carthage Ruins

  Richard Ridley watched the nearby exchange with great interest. He had seen his mercenaries flooding out of the ruins, and had then spotted Queen on the beach, closing in.

  He smiled when his soldiers arrived and pinned her down. Smiled wider when they shot her leg. She was pinned, and nothing was going to save her.

  Then he heard the buzzing noise, out of place in the seaside battle. He looked further down the beach. A man on a motorcycle — a dirt bike really — raced toward Queen. A hooded cape billowed out behind him and concealed his face. He was large and brawny, and dressed all in black. As the man approached the mercenaries that had pinned Queen, he pulled a katana from a sheath on his back, under the cape. Somehow the man maintained his hold on the bike at that speed, with just one hand.

  But the most staggering thing about this man was what came in his wake. Wraiths. Hundreds more. They kept pace with the speeding motorcycle, but suddenly broke away and headed for Ridley’s army.

  Then everything happened at once.

  Queen threw her knife at the mercenary above her. The man fired, but missed as the stranger on the dirt bike ripped past, the blade of his sword slicing neatly through the mercenary’s neck, toppling his head into the sand a full two yards past Queen’s body.

  The rider continued straight past…and headed directly for Ridley as a tidal wave of wraiths poured out of the ruins.

  Ridley had thought there were a lot of the hideous creatures before, when they had attacked his men, but now there were too many to count, leaping, clawing, climbing and clinging to every surface. They ripped into the mercenaries on the beach, and Ridley saw limbs start to fly. The mercenaries fought back, but it was a hopeless situation. They would be quickly overrun by the wraiths. Ridley could see it clearly. He quickly began chanting a healing mantra.

  The man on the dirt bike arrived a moment later, leaping off the speeding vehicle. He landed on his feet in a crouch, with the blade extended horizontal to the ground. The bike continued for a few yards and then crashed spectacularly, flipping end over end until it came to a halt against some trees.

  “Waste of a perfectly good bike,” Ridley said. He knew who he was facing. The man’s long hair and brawn, plus the arrival of the cloaked, gray-skinned creatures was a dead giveaway. Somehow, the damned Greek had survived.

  The man stood slowly, facing Ridley. Only the bottom of his beard could be seen under the long hood on his cloak, but his muscled forearms rippled with menace. Good, Ridley thought. I’ve wanted this for a long time.

  The cloaked man came in fast, swinging the katana. Ridley stepped inside the swing and blocked it with his left arm, still mumbling his chant in the mother tongue. He punched hard with his right hand, the knuckles of his fingers extended to strike his opponent’s throat.

  The strike was lightning fast, but the man dipped his chin at the last second, and stepped back.

  That’s right, I can fight.

  Ridley was glad he had invested the time in studying the Krav Maga now. The Israeli martial art was based on real street-combat techniques designed to incapacitate or kill the opponent as quickly as possibly. Ridley had had no need of studying katas and dance moves. He wanted a martial art that could kill quickly and efficiently. Krav Maga was just that. But his opponent was incredibly fast. Possibly trained in the same techniques. This would be a fight.

  The Greek circled Ridley slowly, keeping his head low, and the sword well out to the side, which seemed like a foolish place for it. Under normal circumstances, a blade was a threat, but while Ridley chanted the mother tongue, he would heal from any wound. Well, nearly any wound. If he takes my head off like he did to that mercenary…

  Ridley vowed that wouldn’t happen. He rushed in, kicking down at his opponent’s inner leg and punching out for the face under the hood. He would go for the eyes and the nose. Then the throat again, then the groin with a knee. He envisioned the movements as he was in motion.

  But the man spun in a tight circle, bringing the blade in and slicing Ridley across the stomach. He could feel the blade tear into him, slicing through the zipper of the jumpsuit, and chewing its way through all the layers of his skin. But he ignored the pain and followed through with his plan. His fist hit the back of the man’s head, just as his mumbling made his skin lining seal up before it spilled his stomach onto the ground. The itch would be maddening if he wasn’t so focused on his next moves. His foot came down in between the spinning man’s legs. He missed his intended target, but his leg now tangled the other man’s. They fell together. On the journey down, he launched his other leg, solidly connecting with the other man’s groin from behind.

  Before they hit the ground, the man threw an elbow around, continuing his spin. The bone connected squarely with Ridley’s nose. He felt his cartilage snap and blood spray out of his face and back through his nasal passage, filling his mouth with a copper tang. As they hit the sandy ground under the tree, the man remained in motion, head-butting Ridley, and then rolling out of reach.

  Ridley twisted around and got to his feet in a crouch. His mouth still mumbling, the wound on his stomach was nearly healed. The Greek was on his feet too, his blade lost and now lying within Ridley’s grasp. The tenets of Krav Maga suggested he pick up the blade and use it to end the fight quickly, but he had suffered for too long at the hands of the Greek, when he was in those cages.

  No, he would prolong the fight and take pleasure out of every strike he landed.

  The Greek stood up slowly to his full height. He undid the cloak’s button at his neck, and pulled it away. His hair — both on his head and his beard — was long, black and a bit messy.

  The hair wasn’t exactly how Ridley remembered it, but a more glaring inconsistency held his attention.

  This man did not have the Greek’s eyes.

  “You’re not Alexander Diotrephes,” Ridley said.

  The man shook his head. “You’re going to wish I was. He’d go easier on you.”

  Ridley’s eyes widened. He recognized the voice.

  Then the two men ran at each other.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  The Beach, Carthage

  Chaos surrounded Queen.

  The newcomer raced past on his dirt bike, lopping off her would be murderer’s head. Queen struggled to her feet, her leg driv
ing bolts of pain straight through to her brain. But she ignored the agony and rushed at the two mercs nearest to her. She tore their throats out with her hands.

  The motocross man was fighting Ridley. Hundreds of wraiths streamed out of the ruins, attacking the newly arrived army. Bullets cut through the air in every direction. A thick choking smoke roiled through the atmosphere. Wraiths leapt like killer monkeys, bounding over the rubble before landing on the shoulders of men who suddenly shrieked at the hideous touch of the creatures leeching their blood away.

  But the wraiths never turned on her. For whatever reason, the creatures were here as allies. And she welcomed the fuck out of them.

  Queen picked up a rifle and started shooting down mercs. She stopped firing entirely when she saw Knight approaching from the far side of the ruins along with Peter and Lynn. They were all armed with stolen mercenary rifles. She didn’t want to risk hitting them in a crossfire.

  “Knight, you read?” she said into her mic.

  “I thought it would be just mop up at this point,” Knight replied.

  “Things didn’t go exactly as planned,” she said.

  Just then the helicopter came ripping by overhead. Rook hung upside down from one of the skids, his legs locked over the bar and a shit-eating grin on his face. In each hand he held a Magnum Desert Eagle.50-caliber pistol. Each pull of the trigger dropped another of the mercenaries, who were too busy worrying about wraiths to think about a danger from above.

  “Eat it, Jockey-Stains!” he shouted over their communications channel.

  The big guns pounded the air, boom, boom, boom.

  “Who the hell is flying the chopper?” Queen asked.

  Knight replied. “Bishop’s been taking lessons.”

  The helicopter wobbled and then took a long sweeping turn around the stationary Colossus, before wobbling again on the other side of the statue, almost hitting it, spinning around in a circle, and then moving sideways, facing the wrong way.

  “I’m gonna guess not too many lessons yet,” Queen said.

  “Not sure he knows how to land,” Knight chuckled.

  Queen fired off a few more shots at the mercenaries, but it was apparent the wraiths would win this battle now.

  Fresh gunfire erupted from the far side of Colossus. The camouflaged soldiers were firing on the wraiths with a heavy machine gun. Suddenly the shots from Rook’s handguns sounded quieter. Someone fired an RPG into the mess. Queen dove for the sand of the beach again.

  The rocket smashed into one of the last upright walls of the ruins, spaying wraith and mercenary guts alike in different directions.

  With a shriek of tires, a huge blue Mercedes truck came roaring over the dirt road behind the camo soldiers, scattering them to the left and the right, as it came barreling through and loudly honking its horn.

  It left the road and bounded over the ruins, running over wraith and mercenary alike.

  The camo soldiers redirected their fire on the rear of the covered heavy truck, but their small arms fire did little to deter it. Even if they could get the.50 cal on it, they’re not going to stop her now.

  Asya looked small through the windshield of the massive truck, as it bounced high over the rocky rubble, more in the process of crashing than driving over things. The truck had arrived so suddenly that it looked out of control, but Queen knew exactly what the feisty little Russian was planning. Smart Girl. She’s going to ram it.

  Just before the blue truck crashed into the leg of the Colossus, Asya threw herself out of the driver’s side door. The truck, without its driver, swerved sharply to the side and looked like it would miss. But then the right front wheel caught on a solid piece of rubble and the back side of the truck lifted into the air.

  The truck flipped and smashed into the lower calf of the statue’s leg. The truck ripped the lower leg of the statue clean off, and then tumbled further into the ruins, flipping and rolling.

  Unbalanced, the Colossus toppled over, slowly falling toward where Ridley and the thickly bearded man were still fighting.

  Gunfire forced Queen to hobble back down the beach, trying to get away from the camo-soldiers and the Colossus’s impact zone.

  Just then the helicopter came screaming overhead, Rook now clinging to the skid with one arm and bleeding from the other. The bird was streaming smoke, and it looked like Bishop was going to crash into the sea. As soon as the helicopter was over the water, Rook let go of his skid and dropped about thirty feet, sending up a big splash. At less than twenty feet over the surface of the water, Bishop banked the craft hard to the left and dove out the right side door, the spinning blades missing his ankles by what looked like inches. The helicopter crashed into the water just as a rocket streamed in and slammed into the chopper, sending parts of the white metal skin high into the sky, amid a gurgling roiling ball of orange flame and black smoke.

  Queen looked up at the falling Colossus, and back to the combatants locked in a furious fist-fight under the trees near the tennis court. Then she recognized the stranger’s fighting style and skidded to a stop.

  “It can’t be,” she said.

  The man seemed to sense her attention. He turned toward her for a moment. He was far away, but beyond the beard and the hair, she knew she was looking at Jack Sigler, back from the dead and commanding an army of wraiths.

  Then the mighty headless Colossus slammed into the ground, flattening him and Ridley, and sending up a plume of sand and dust so thick that Queen couldn’t see anymore. The thunder from the impact nearly ruptured her eardrums, and the shockwave knocked her down onto her back.

  “Queen, are you alright?” Knight was asking in hear ear.

  Queen closed her eyes. She could still see his face, but it wasn’t possible. Not only had Asya seen him die, but he didn’t just grow his hair and beard that long overnight. She shook her head. “I’m just going to lie here for a while. I need to bleed for a bit.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Ruins of Carthage

  Queen lay in the sand, listening to the wraiths tear the last of the mercenaries apart to her left in the ruins. The Tunisian forces had stopped firing and were in full retreat. She couldn’t see any of them on the fringes of the battle anymore. She suspected she knew the reason for that.

  “Deep Blue,” she coughed a few times to clear her throat. “You read me?”

  “Go ahead, Queen.”

  “You behind the withdrawal of the Tunisian forces?” she asked.

  “Yes, but there will be some big hell to pay later. The President is shitting bricks, and the bricks are building pyramids. I still don’t have eyes on you. Give me a sit-rep.”

  “Sure, why not? I’m just relaxing on the beach.”

  “Not exactly the time for sarcasm,” Deep Blue said.

  “Wasn’t kidding. I am actually lying on the beach. Leg is shot to hell. What else? Ridley turned the Colossus of Rhodes into a golem. It kicked our asses, then fell over. Pawn did that. Crashed a truck into the golem’s leg. She might be dead. Bishop and Rook crashed into the sea in a helicopter that blew up. They might be dead. There’s an army of Alexander’s wraiths killing the last of the mercenary forces. I think Ridley got squashed, but I can’t confirm it. Seth took a few rounds to the head, but was doing his healing thing, so who knows? I haven’t heard back from Knight — he’s got some broken ribs.”

  “My God. Anything else I should know?”

  “I saw King.”

  “His body?”

  “Going toe-to-toe with Ridley before the Colossus dropped on top of them.”

  Just then a single shot rang out loudly, cutting through the silence that followed the battle. The sound sent a jolt through her body. She sat up quickly.

  “Be right back, Blue.”

  “Wait! Queen—” she switched channels.

  “Knight?” she asked into her microphone.

  She heard another single shot. And then another.

  “It’s me,” he said in her ear. “Seth is alive. About a hundred y
ards out from me. I keep shooting him, but he keeps getting back up. If I can’t take off his jaw, I’m not sure I can keep him down while he’s whispering that mother tongue crap.” Queen heard another single shot.

  “Try to keep him incapacitated. Where are you?”

  “Northwest corner of the ruins. Better hurry. I’m running out of bullets and I’m not going anywhere fast.”

  She heard another shot echo through the ruins, as the smoke and dust started to clear. The wind was picking up fast now. The sun slid behind a wall of dark storm clouds coming in from the water. She struggled back to her feet and saw wraiths zipping into the ruins and away from the shore — there were no more mercenaries standing. The field in front of the shattered bits of history was strewn with bodies and parts of bodies — more parts than full corpses. She staggered over the first few arms and legs she saw, not wanting to step on the dead. But there were too many of them. She gave up and just started walking on whatever was underfoot, heading toward the ruins, armed only with her knife. She could bend down and pick up any number of rifles, but it seemed like too much work. Right now she was having trouble walking. The pain shooting up her leg with each step on her damaged calf was excruciating. But there were priorities. She needed to get to Knight and help him keep Seth down. She wanted no loose ends this time.

  She tried to reach Rook and Bishop to no avail. It was down to her. So she fought against the pain in her leg and clutched the knife tightly in her hand. If Seth was still down when she got there, she’d cut his head off. That would keep the little pecker from regenerating.

  As she stumbled past a three foot high wall of stone, she saw someone coming toward her through the dust. She crouched, ready to deal death if whoever was coming was another hostile.