by Ralph Kern
What the hell is going on?
“Stop. Please don’t cry out. I know it’s hard, but I need you to be as quiet as you can.” It took Mack a moment to realize it was Laurie’s whispering voice coming from behind her seat.
The window in front of her was smashed, branches stretching into the cockpit. She followed the closest one and gave a low moan as she saw it had smashed her right arm. That she had an open fracture was beyond doubt—she could see the fucking bone sticking out, meat and tendon clinging to it. She gave a sob of disbelief. It didn’t even look like it belongs to her anymore. She tried to lift her arm. The pain intensified and she felt a wail of pure agony emanate from deep within her.
“Shh,” Laurie hissed. “Please hush. I haven’t been able to do anything about your arm. I’m sorry. I’ve had to look after the others.”
The others. Perry Donovan. That other passenger. What is his name? Tsang? Doctor Tsang, that was it.
“What... what’s their status?” With a gasp, she pulled her helmet off and let it drop to the deck then let her head loll to the side. Her neck loosened and obliged. She saw the right side of cockpit was covered in blood. A pool had gathered in the foot well, but the man himself was missing. “Where is he? Where’s Perry?”
“I had to bring him into the back,” Laurie whispered. “He’s not looking good, Mack. He’s hurt really badly.”
Mack shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. The pain in her neck put a stop to that. “What about Doctor Tsang?”
The silence answered her question. She reached with a shaky left hand and twisted the quick release handle. The straps fell away from her torso, one brushing against her injured arm, causing her to gasp. “I need to help.”
“No. Please. Just stay still.”
Mack twisted in her seat. Agony lanced through her and she cried again. Before her, the dense foliage rustled ominously and she paused. “What the hell was that?”
“There’s things out there,” Laurie sounded scared. “They’ve only just settled back down after the crash.”
Mack gingerly reached into her shoulder holster, undid the flap, and drew her gun out awkwardly, and then remembered her right arm. Shit. Adapt and overcome, as the Marines would say. She thrust the gun between her thighs, locking it in there, and strained to pull back on the slide with her left hand. After the third attempt, she realized she wouldn’t be able to gain the leverage to manage it. “What things?”
“Things. Big horrible bloody things,” Laurie whispered. “I need to get back to Perry. Mack... he’s not good. I don’t know what to do.”
Mack gave up on trying to pull the slide back and held the gun over her shoulder. “Take this. Pull back on the slide. The top bit. Then let it go and it will spring forward. We’ll have a ready weapon then so if anyone... anything, gives us any trouble, point it at them and pull the trigger. Oh, and pass me a small branch.”
The weight of the gun disappeared from her hand and was replaced by a wooden cylinder. She moved it to her mouth and bit down on it. She took a few deep breaths, steeling herself, then twisted in the seat. The pain from her shattered arm was unbearable. Her whole body, too. She must be one big bruise. She rotated over the center console, whimpering as her teeth dug into the branch, fending of the scream she would have given.
She clawed her way toward past the switches and buttons into the cabin, dropping into it. The pain overwhelmed her, and blackness encroached on her vision. But not before she saw Donovan lying there, another branch protruding from his heaving chest as bloody froth bubbled from his mouth.
***
Grayson zipped up his windbreaker before kneeling down to tie the laces on his boots.
“You promised you weren’t going to go again!” Kristen shouted. “I damn well quote, ‘I’m not leaving you and James again. Never.’”
He finished looping the laces and stood, looking around the room and checking for anything else which might be useful. He had one more item to collect. But he wasn’t going to get that while his wife was doing her level best to perforate his eardrums.
“Don’t fucking ignore me.” Kristen deliberately stood in front of him. “You’ll be lucky if those people don’t blow your brains out the second you step on that ship.”
He walked toward Kristen and gripped her shoulders. “That’s precisely why I have to go.” Well, one reason. “Look, I know people have been murmuring that Urbano has lost his touch. That he’s pandering to these people. But there’s a good reason for it. We have to live together now.”
“And you think going on this jaunt will mean they’ll tell you all’s forgiven? Are you high?” Kristen said incredulously. “Do you have any more of what you’ve been smoking? I want some.”
“No,” Grayson said. Her fiery nature was something about her he loved very much. But it sure as hell meant he was in the crosshairs when he went against her wishes. “They probably won’t. But it’ll mean they start to see us all in a better light. And that’s a decent-enough objective. Look at this place.” Grayson gestured around the ramshackle hut which was their home. “It’s hardly a step up from the Titan. But if we can start integrating, maybe you and James can have a better life.”
“And you?”
“I’m going, Kristen. Deal with it.” He deliberately drained all warmth from his voice. He needed this argument over. And now. Frankly he didn’t have the time or inclination to continue it. He had to keep his eye on the prize.
She glared at him for a long moment before turning on her heels and storming out the hut, letting the thin, ramshackle door slam shut behind her.
“Thank god for that,” Grayson muttered. He slid his suitcase from under their camp bed and opened it. He untacked the lining on the lid and grabbed the thin envelope within and folded it down before stuffing it into the crotch of his pants. He closed the suitcase and replaced it.
He marched outside where Bautista waited in the predawn darkness, his head cocked. “It didn’t sound like she took the news so well.”
Grayson waved away his comment and continued walking toward the pier. Over in the field, an oasis of light illuminated the helicopter. The crew had been working tirelessly all night to repair it. He guessed Slater either hadn’t told them they weren’t the primary rescue crew or they didn’t care and were carrying on anyway.
A small collection of figures waited by the steps leading up to the rickety jetty which speared out into the sea.
“Mister Grayson.”
“Mornin’.” Grayson addressed Jack Cohen. The man didn’t look hostile. And he knew from hard experience, that was worse than animosity. Jack was a cool customer, that was for damn sure. Bautista had told him how the cripple had taken down a half dozen of his boarding crew virtually single-handedly. Hell, maybe he should have been on a SOG team with the kind of brutal efficiency he’d shown.
“We appreciate the offer of help,” Jack said coolly. “Although I personally wouldn’t have agreed to it, my bosses did. I need to know, what is your experience? Just so I know I’m not taking a Walter Mitty with me.”
“Army,” Grayson responded. He somehow got the impression Jack wouldn’t have been impressed with any attempt to glorify his career. The man wanted facts and that was it. “I’ve been involved with and ran combat search and rescue operations in Afghanistan, the Vortex. Maybe a couple of other places, too.”
“Special Ops?”
Grayson responded with a shrug. It would give Jack all the acknowledgement he needed.
“That would explain how you did what you did on the Atlantica.” Jack nodded coldly. “Just out of curiosity... what’s the Warrior’s Ethos?”
Grayson gave a slight smile at the not-so-subtle test. “I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit.”
“And?”
“That’d be the pertinent one for our current situation—I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
“Okay,” the Marine said, seemingly satisfied. Jack
put his hands up. Grayson followed the prompt, raising his own arms. Jack began to efficiently pat him down from top to bottom. Not that he’d find anything. “You are here to assist in the recovery of Ignatius’s Seahawk crew, which has now been missing and overdue for over twelve hours. We are operating under the assumption that they have crashed and we may have casualties. I’ll give you the full briefing in the air.”
“Understood.”
Jack finished frisking him and gestured for Grayson to walk with him. The two men began walking down the pier toward the looming Osiris. Grayson looked at the ship’s sleek lines, which had been burned into his memory ever since that mission all those years ago.
“You have clearly demonstrated your skills and adaptability,” Jack continued speaking. Grayson listened with one ear while regarding the superyacht. He saw the bolted-on box launchers and other equipment. She looked more than capable, in a jury-rigged kinda way, of looking after herself. Why the hell had they thought a couple of patrol boats could take her on? “We are going into an unknown situation with no advance intelligence. Let me be clear, the last thing I want to deal with is having to keep an eye on you constantly. I’ll have no problem throwing you out the helicopter if it comes to it. Understood?”
“Licky Chicky,” Grayson murmured distractedly as they came to the gangplank extending from the huge vessel’s stern. He paused. He fully knew he wasn’t overly given to sentiment or nerves, but the thought of being here made butterflies tickle his stomach.
A horribly scarred man, half of his face burned, stood on the deck. His physique was muscular, yet athletic. The wound covering his skin had undoubtedly healed, yet still looked reasonably fresh. He looked Grayson up and down, one eye sloughed at a strange angle.
Grayson nodded in greeting as the man stepped aside and pointed up some stairs. “You are to go straight to the helicopter. We are not having people wandering around.”
“Yeah, I hear you value your privacy.” Grayson smiled at the mutilated man.
Climbing the wide sweeping stairway, Grayson noted the doors were closed while metal posts with rope barriers between them blocked the corridors, each guarded by similarly tough-looking men and women. They looked serious. No one was getting anywhere without their say-so. In the periphery of his vision, he mentally marked the security cameras. There were a hell of a lot of them, far more than seemed necessary. Grayson noted it all, filing it away in his memory. When he got back, he’d make damn sure he mapped everything he could of the ship.
Every now and again, Grayson saw Jack reach for a bannister, briefly steadying himself before continuing.
“Urbano told me about you,” Grayson said. “About what you did in the cargo bay of Atlantica.”
“Did he now,” Jack replied curtly, his inflection brooking no further question on the topic.
“You sure you can traverse a forest?” Grayson changed tack as they rounded another flight of stairs and continued upward. “We might be facing some rough ground out there and we may have to move fast.”
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”
“Right.”
As they climbed, the stairwell opened onto the expansive rear deck. A helicopter sat on the pad, rotor blades slowly turning, lit by floodlights in the predawn darkness.
“Gentlemen.” Wakefield stepped forward, his polo shirt open, his feet clad in nothing more than a pair of flip-flops. “Please take care of my toy. We only have two left now, not including the broken-down heap of junk on the beach. I shit you not—if my shiny new helicopter doesn’t come back intact, then please don’t bother coming back yourselves.”
Grayson looked at the man. The man he’d pursued across ten million years. He was so close he could do it now. He could cross the fifteen feet to him. His first blow would be to his throat, that would disable him. Then he’d pull him around and stab his fingers into his eyes before using him as a human shield. Either his security would take the shot and risk killing him too, or they’d be too slow and he’d throttle the life out of him.
Then he’d be gunned down.
No, pick your moment, Karl. This doesn’t have to be a suicide mission.
“Thank you, Mister Wakefield, for the loan,” Jack said as he pushed his rucksack into the open passenger cabin of the Airbus H155. The gray leather seats within were far more suited for executive travel than the rough and ready military Seahawk, the interior pristine and seemingly untouched.
Grayson pulled himself into the cabin and took a place near the window. He felt one step closer, and a million miles from his destination. The thought that Celia Bradley, if she was still alive, was a mere stone’s throw in terms of distance didn’t elude him either.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – The Past
The moonlight-flecked sea raced by beneath Pearson’s fighter. Growing ahead, two flickering orange funeral pyres marked the destruction of the pair of patrol vessels Overlord had briefed him had been hijacked by terrorists.
Why had they been pursuing that superyacht? Who knew? That was for the intel geeks to figure out later. But right here and now, he’d done his job.
“Good hit on both targets.” It was strange. Why the hell didn’t he feel that vague satisfaction he’d gotten on combat missions during his tours in the Vortex? Maybe because he was responsible for having just destroyed half an allied nation’s navy.
Or maybe it was because when he woke up this morning, in his bachelor officer’s quarters on Sigsbee Park, he hadn’t expected to have to kill someone... many people, in fact. Maybe there had even been the original crew aboard. Taken hostage. Hoping for a rescue which had never come. Whatever happened, it was going to be one hell of a diplomatic incident.
He shook his head, physically shedding his doubts. He was still on mission and he was concerned with targets not people. He’d seen more than one aviator lose their nerve when they started thinking about the lives involved when they pushed the button.
Pressing a stud on his stick, he looked down. The six night-vision cameras on his bird’s hull automatically processed themselves into a composite image displayed on his helmets visor, effectively letting him see through the hull.
He streaked over the bright lime smudges of the remains of the Nassau and Bahamas. Yeah, definitely a good hit on the two hijacked ships.
Four much smaller blobs caught his eye below, racing away from the ship in the direction of the superyacht Cobra flight had been ordered to protect. He cocked his head and flicked a stud on his stick up.
The image focused in on one of the blobs. It resolved itself into a RIB, powering its way, along with its friends, forward.
Their job wasn’t done yet.
Setting his teeth, he pushed the stick to the left, beginning a wide banking turn.
***
“We have two fast movers.” Dillon craned his neck to look upward as the fighters thundered low over the rolling water and began arcing away. He turned to Grayson. “Single engine, they’ve got to be F-35s. Probably out of Navy Key West.”
“Those fuckers have just done a real number on us,” Grayson growled in response. He could practically smell the burning oil from the destroyed ships. “You think they spotted us?”
“Karl, they’re fifth-generation fighters with the most advanced sensors in the world.” Dillon’s tone was grim. “Yeah, they spotted us and they ain’t gonna stop till the job’s done.”
Grayson grimaced and looked over at the pilot of the RIB. “If you can get any more speed out this thing... do it.”
The rumble of the fighters’ engines receded into the distance.
Then the volume balanced out, remaining at the same pitch.
And then it steadily became louder.
They were coming back. Grayson looked up into the night sky, trying in vain to spot the birds of prey coming for them.
***
The crosshairs on his Visor HUD locked onto one of the speedboats.
“Guns, guns, guns.” Pearson firmly squeezed the trigger. The aircraft
began to judder as the four barrels of the pod-mounted GAU-22/A minigun on his port wing spun up. A fraction of a second later, a streamer of fire lashed out toward one of the small speedboats.
***
Grayson ducked reflexively as a laser-like beam of tracer fire impacted one of the other RIBs with unerring accuracy. It didn’t look like a single round missed. Dozens of 25mm rounds shredded the fragile boat, and the even more fragile people within.
The roar as the fighter raced low over the RIB was deafening. It took Grayson a moment to realize that a second RIB had been eviscerated by another fighter, leaving nothing but tumbling debris and body parts.
“Get us evading!”
“That ain’t going to do shit!” Dillon shouted over the fading roar of the fighters. “We need to—”
“To do what, Max?” Grayson shouted back over the spray and receding engine noise of the fighters. “We can’t signal our surrender. Those pilots are either in on whatever the hell is going on, or they’ve been misled by someone who is. Either way, they ain’t going to stop. Our only chance is to push on and get aboard that fucking ship before they hit us again.”
The flare of the fighter’s engine disappeared as it began its turn. Grayson looked at the Osiris, still a mile ahead. “Fuck it.”
He unslung his SCAR-H rifle and sighted through the ACOG sight toward where the fighter had vanished. The damn thing had turned; its engine flare was invisible in the night sky, only the sound of its roar giving away its presence.
Come on you bastard, show yourself.
The ACOG sight had only a 4x magnification. When the fighter opened fire, it’d be too late, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to go down fighting.
That was the Warrior’s Ethos.
“I will never accept defeat,” Grayson murmured. The dark sky was empty, the only sound a low rumble of thunder from the fighters’ engines.
“Karl, we have to get off,” Dillon urged from somewhere behind.
He circled the sight, trying to pick up a sign, anything of the death that was coming his way. The boat was racing forward at least twenty-five knots, and bouncing up and down over the waves as it did. And the damn target was moving at a substantial portion of the speed of sound.
