Arch Enemy

by Leo J. Maloney

  Morgan wasn’t going to bite. Anything he gave had an ulterior motive. “I don’t think you much care about General Strickland.”

  “And what do I care about?”

  “You want to be known. You want to be recognized. In the Legion, you had followers. All of them had to look on you like a god. It was the nature of the thing. From everyone else, you had to keep who you were a secret, or you’d end up”—Morgan motioned around them—“in a place like this. But for some reason, you respect me. You think that I can see who you really are.”

  “And maybe you can,” he said. “On opposite sides though we might be.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “My own.”

  “You’re being cagey,” said Morgan. “It’s beneath you. If your purpose is to live out your nature, then what is your nature?”

  “Chaos. The essence of my being, my calling in life, is to cause pain and destruction.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have much opportunity.”

  Praetorian’s face stretched into a hideous grin. “I am going to kill a lot of people. I am going to bring down the government of the United States, and the world will be mayhem.”

  “I don’t see how you’re going to accomplish that in here.”

  “And I’m going to kill you, too.”

  “This session is over,” said Morgan. A raw assertion of power was necessary to put the prisoner in his place.

  Morgan walked over and knocked on the window to be let out.

  A hash buzz sounded, and both the door to the control room and to the holding cells clicked open. There on the threshold to the control room stood Gillevet. It took Morgan a moment to figure out what was wrong with him, to assimilate the look of dumb surprise on his face. A moment later, Gillevet stumbled forward and fell to the ground, blood spreading on the clean floor.

  Behind him was a man holding an MP7 from the armory, one of the replacements who had arrived in the latest transport.

  He heard Praetorian speak behind him. Close. Too close.

  “I think it’s not.”

  Chapter 84

  Praetorian had gotten free of his handcuffs. Morgan wondered how long he sat on that trick, waiting for the time to act.

  He looked at the gunman and figured he liked his chances against Praetorian better.

  Morgan pivoted to get behind Praetorian, but the bastard was quick and pushed him. Morgan stumbled backward. Falling would have put him in a vulnerable position he couldn’t recover from.

  Praetorian followed up with a lunge toward Morgan, bodycheck-ing him and landing a quick one-two punch before Morgan could block him. Morgan gasped at the sharp pain in his broken ribs. Damn, the bastard was fast. The next blow pushed Morgan against the steel table with a clatter of instruments.

  Morgan grabbed a scalpel and swung at his opponent. Praetorian raised his arm to deflect and Morgan slashed, long and deep. He followed it up with a left hook and moved to stab him again, but Praetorian spun and knocked the scalpel from his hand.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw the gunman, tense and watching, waiting for an opening to shoot. At all costs, Morgan couldn’t give it to him.

  Praetorian picked up a dentist’s probe. Morgan grappled with him for it. They turned, vying for the weapon until Praetorian kicked him away, propelling Morgan to the middle of the room. Praetorian’s confederate had a clear shot.

  Morgan picked up the chair he had sat on and tossed it full force against the gunman, who raised the MP7 to block it. Morgan took the opening to run in the only direction that was left to him—to the catwalk and the prisoner holding cells.

  His running steps echoed in the vast open hull of the ship as he made his way to the far side, away from Praetorian. There was only one problem.

  Ahead of him was a dead end. With the last two cells on either side, the catwalk ended.

  An alarm blared and this was no longer the greatest of his problems.

  All the doors to the cells opened at once. Prisoners who had been drawn to the commotion were taking tentative steps out onto the catwalk, blinking in the relative brightness outside their confinement. Men in beards and long hair, whose eyes told a story about how long they had been there. Two emerged from the far cells on either side of him. Morgan stood back against the wire mesh that closed off the end of the catwalk.

  While they looked at the way out, several of those pairs of eyes (although in at least one case, it was a single eye) noted Morgan’s presence, and saw that he was unarmed. Most made their break for the exit, but two, whether to neutralize a threat or out of sheer revenge, turned on Morgan. One was Middle Eastern, about Morgan’s age, with thick black hair and a scraggly beard, and the other was young and Eastern European, with light blue eyes and dirty blond curls in a tangle. These two walked against the current of escaping prisoners toward Morgan.

  Through the aches that were settling in from his struggle with Praetorian, Morgan wound himself up for a fight. His muscles tensed and his hands curled into fists at his sides. These were tight quarters. He was cornered, but they could only approach one at a time. And given their situation, Morgan should be by far in better shape.

  The kid rushed him first, sloppy and hasty. Morgan grabbed his arm and swerved, dislocating the boy’s shoulder, and then kicked down to break his leg. He screamed and fell to the metal floor.

  The other, Morgan could tell, had more experience. He held a solid stance and advanced guardedly. But he had slaughter in his eyes.

  “I’m not the enemy,” said Morgan. “I never put you in here, I never did you harm. The way’s free and clear. Go.”

  But whether he didn’t speak English or was enraged beyond words, the prisoner didn’t make a sign of having understood. He just moved forward.

  Well, if that’s how it’s going to be . . .

  The attacker lunged, throwing a heavy punch. Morgan dodged and came back with a kick to his chest. The man stumbled back but recovered. He was strong, solid, and thick. A direct attack would leave them grappling, which Morgan had no certainty of winning. His approach to such an opponent would be to circle around him, stay on the move, and look for an opening. The tight quarters gave him a solid advantage of focusing his defense.

  The man charged. With nowhere to escape to, Morgan positioned himself to mitigate the force of the blow.

  The man brought him down, and Morgan used the momentum of the fall to push him off and back.

  Morgan stood up before he did. Before he could attack, he heard footsteps behind. At the end of the catwalk was Praetorian’s gunman.

  Think. Use your environment.

  The man charged. On instinct, Morgan jumped and grabbed the railing that ran above the catwalk, lifting his body. The prisoner charged past him and he dropped back down on the catwalk.

  The gunman opened fire.

  The Middle Eastern prisoner took the hail of bullets as Morgan ducked into the far cell on his right. He heard the heavy thump as the prisoner fell onto the catwalk.

  He’d been saved from that attack, but what now? Footsteps clanged on the catwalk as the gunman drew closer. Morgan was trapped, with nowhere to go. Then—

  “Let’s go!” It was Praetorian.

  “But the interrogator—” the gunman began.

  “Leave him. Let him sink along with the ship.”

  Morgan heard footsteps on metal receding as the gunman walked back toward the interrogation room, and then the clanking of the door to the catwalk being locked.

  This was not good.

  Morgan lay in wait in case they came back, running the scenario in his head. They were sinking the ship.

  He had to get out of there, which meant that first he had to get out of this damn cage.

  He waited it out until he was sure they had gone. Then he emerged from the cell and ran to try the only door out of there. Locked, of course. He examined it. It was airtight, with a window into the interrogation room made of glass reinforced by wire mesh, too small for Morgan to cra
wl through in any case. It was dead-bolted from the other side. There was no hope for him to get out that way.

  He then looked around the door. The mesh ran the entire length of the catwalk in an upside-down U. Morgan ran his hands against it. It was thick, ten-gauge wire, welded rather than woven. It was welded as well to the walls of the interrogation room and the floor of the catwalk. With something to batter it, like a fire extinguisher, he might, with enough time, be able to hammer it loose. He had nothing of the kind, nor enough time to accomplish it.

  He walked back down the catwalk, taking in the details of the structure, looking at the fault lines. All were as solid as those around the door. He reached the end of the catwalk and examined the cage there. All welded tight.

  The young Eastern European man was still moaning on the floor, clutching his broken leg. He looked at Morgan with sheer hatred.

  Morgan looked at the area around the catwalk. On one end it was attached to the interrogation room, but it was otherwise in the void of the cavernous oil tank, attached by massive chains, three to each side, evenly spaced, that ran off into the dark recesses of the chamber. More, Morgan figured, although he couldn’t see, would be holding up the cells.

  The place was, of course, built to be a maximum security holding facility. But, he reasoned, it was also meant to be watched twenty-four/seven, which left the possibility that something might have been overlooked that could give him the advantage. He saw a glimmer of hope. If he were able to pull out a toilet, he could—

  BOOM.

  Morgan was knocked off his feet and thrown against the mesh cage. Metal screeched, and Morgan lost his sense of up and down. He tumbled, disoriented, until he hit something soft.

  It was the dead prisoner, still bleeding from a dozen gunshot wounds. It took him a moment to figure out what had happened. There had been an explosion. The catwalk and cells had been knocked loose from their chains on one side. The whole superstructure had been torn away from the interrogation room and was now hanging on by a thread. The far end, where he now found himself, was resting against the bottom of the ship.

  Lights flickered.

  There was something else, too, and he heard it as soon as the ringing in his ears subsided.

  Water. Thousands of gallons of water, cold and black, gushing inside through a gaping hole in the hull. Below him, dark water washed over the bottom of the tank and rose fast.

  But Morgan had an opening now. A goal. He was stuck at the bottom of a tubular cage, but the other end of the catwalk, torn from the interrogation room and now a steep upward climb away, promised escape. He began his ascent. The mesh made for fine hand- and footholds. The water was rising fast, but he could move faster.

  As he passed the door to the first cell, a hand reached out and grabbed his leg. He looked down to see the Eastern European kid whose leg he had broken, already half submerged in water.

  Morgan kicked, trying to wrest himself free. The water rose to touch Morgan’s foot. The kid was getting desperate. He grabbed Morgan’s leg tight, terror on his face as the water came closer and closer to covering his nose and mouth.

  He was condemned. There was nothing that Morgan could do to get him out of there. Morgan wrested himself free, leaving behind a boot, and continued his climb, legs now sodden and heavy.

  The water reached the lights, which shorted and fizzled out, plunging the chamber into total darkness. Morgan pressed on, barely outpacing the water.

  He was now nearing the top, which brought another problem. Where would he go from there? The door to the interrogation room would still be shut tight. He didn’t know whether there were any other openings into the upper decks. There was only one opening to the outside that he knew of for sure. It was down, where the bomb had torn open the hull.

  Morgan reached the top just ahead of the rising tide and went right to the business of shedding every article of clothing on his body—they were dead weight to him. He took a few deep breaths as his shins were submerged. He filled his lungs one last time and climbed over the mesh, plunging into the icy waters of the Bering Sea.

  The cold was nearly enough to knock all the air out of him, but he kept his wits about him and held it in. He grabbed the wire mesh, from the outside this time, and began the climb down.

  Fighting buoyancy was easier than fighting gravity. Reach, grab, pull. Reach, grab, pull. As his fingers grew numb, the grab became trickier, but he pressed on. Reach, grab, pull.

  Thirty seconds later he was at the bottom, and this is where things became difficult. He had only the vaguest idea of where the hole was, and he was about to lose the guide of the catwalk.

  As the mesh curved down, he reached out. He visualized the bottom of the boat as he had seen after the catwalk collapsed. There was a girder that ran from fore to aft along the central spine, and others that ran up the sides like ribs. He found one of these latter ones and pulled himself toward the middle, his legs dangling upward.

  This is when he released the air in his lungs. This gave him a minute, ninety seconds tops, before he was toast. He had to get out of there.

  Deadened as his sense of touch was, he found the middle girder. In the complete darkness, with compromised feeling, one thing told him where to go. He had to move against the current. As he got closer to the hole, it would only get stronger.

  The current shifted as he moved, moving from his twelve o’clock to one, then two, until it was to his three o’clock. The tear was off center, then. He reached for the cross-girder and found one some five feet ahead.

  This pull was the hardest. His lungs burned, and the current threatened to tear him away from his handhold if he didn’t fight against the paralyzing cold hard enough to maintain his grip. He could feel nearly nothing now. One false grab would do him in.

  Reach, grab, pull. Until he reached—and there was nothing to grab, only an overwhelming current, going upward. He had reached the hole.

  This was the last challenge. Morgan had to push himself off and clear the hole, catching the outside hull on the other side or he’d be sucked upward toward the top of the oil tank, where he’d die, trapped against the ceiling.

  He pushed. His back hit the lip of the hole on the other side, and the current pulled him back inward.

  He reached out for anything that might hold him back. He didn’t know what he found, just that his right hand found purchase, and he brought his left hand to brace against the relentless force.

  He pulled, as hard as he could, muscles screaming with pain and his lungs begging for air.

  And then he was out, tumbling against the outer hull of the tanker. Buoyancy pulled him up, faster and faster. A dull pain filled him, and he wondered what kind of damage this might be doing to his body. But only one thing mattered.

  He emerged into the air and took in a deep, wheezing breath. For half a minute, all he did was breathe.

  Through stinging eyes, he saw the wall of the ship beside him in the moonlight. A helicopter flew past overhead—Praetorian, making his escape.

  The ship was half-sunk. He needed to get as far away from it as possible before it sank completely, or it would suck him down as it went under.

  The cold had penetrated to his bones, and his limbs were barely responding. But he swam away from the ship, using energy he did not have.

  He was a little over one hundred yards away, by his estimate, when the night was lit up by a second explosion. He looked back at the ship. It was up in flames.

  Debris dropped into the water all around him. He dove as deep as he could to avoid direct hits and stayed as long as his breath allowed.

  He resurfaced amid scattered pieces of the ship. With the last of his strength he swam to a floating barrel and draped himself over it.

  He blacked out to the warm glow of the fire on the sinking ship and the bobbing of the waves.

  Chapter 85

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!”

  Valkyrie had the familiar glint in her eyes. Centurion had almost forgotten what it was l
ike, how Praetorian brought this out of her. It burned at his insides, how close he and she had gotten in the past few months, all that they had shared, and still, she never once during that time seemed as excited about anything as she was now.

  He followed her outside to the misty morning, looking out into the Appalachian Valley, the sea of evergreens poking out of the snow, the sun just peeking out between the mountains behind them.

  All this beauty, and still Centurion’s eyes were drawn to Valkyrie, her purple-highlighted dark brown hair, her fine pale white features like a china doll’s. And her eyes, large, beautiful and blue, looking only at the chopper approaching in the distance like the faithful awaiting salvation.

  Centurion sat on a frigid rock as the minutes ticked by and the helicopter drew closer, but Valkyrie didn’t move. It was as if she wanted to reach out, to run so that she might see him a few seconds sooner.

  The helicopter touched down in the clearing a couple of hundred feet down and Valkyrie sprinted down to meet it. To meet him.

  Centurion waited, imagining as Valkyrie embraced Praetorian, kissed him, gave herself wholly to him. It was better than seeing it firsthand.

  They appeared from between the trees as they walked up to the house, the mercenaries taking the lead.

  And there he was, just ahead of Valkyrie, a manic smile plastered to her face. Him. The beautiful. The terrible.

  Praetorian.

  He looked haggard. His hair was longer, his beard overgrown. But there was triumph in his eyes.

  “Greetings, brother,” Praetorian said. “Sister Valkyrie tells me you’ve been a good lieutenant in my absence.”

  Centurion bowed. “My allegiance is with you. Welcome back.”

  Behind him was someone else. Someone Centurion had never seen before. But he knew exactly who it was. And he knew that Praetorian’s mission had been a success.

  Chapter 86

  Morgan woke up chilled to the bone in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires and with an IV stuck in his arm.