Kneel Or Die

by Michael Anderle

“It’s going to take a little while to get there, but I think you’re going to like it just fine.”

  Bobcat’s mind was working frantically. They had built the SHLY 2.0s quite quickly after their return from Turkey. Most of the work had been farmed out to other TQB businesses, none of them getting too much of the project. The Pods were actually pretty simple, if you didn’t count the glass and displays that were part of it. Other than the air system, the most complicated piece on any craft such as theirs would be the engines and directional control. For right now, that was all taken care of via TOM’s ship and the new engines. They didn’t have to ‘build’ anything or run lines, coolant or any of that mess.

  If Lance was providing such a large area for the Team BMW Garage, it could only mean that Bethany Anne had big-ass requirements to go along with their new big-ass garage. The bigger the garage Bobcat felt certain, the bigger the request coming at them.

  Twenty-five minutes later Bobcat got a look at just how big his new garage was. He pursed his lips as William was acting like a ten-year-old hauling in a huge Christmas as he went from one expensive and unique manufacturing machine to the next. Some of them cost over a million each. Marcus had his own glassed in room filled with computers and other stuff Bobcat couldn’t pronounce.

  No, it wasn’t the millions of dollars in William’s equipment that told Bobcat they had an impossible task in front of them. It wasn’t the amazing and rare tools and scientific equipment that had been purchased for Marcus that assured it.

  No, what told him that they had a hell of a challenge ahead of them was in the middle of the floor. Right smack-dab under the circular area that would become a motorized roof. He walked over to it.

  A tear slowly leaked down Bobcat’s face as he put his hand out to touch the brand new Sikorsky UH-60M sitting in the landing area, looking like she was ready to scream up through the opening. He noticed off to one side, the different weapons and support kits that William would be playing with in short order.

  Bethany Anne had just told him in her very unique way that she was proud of him and his team.

  Bobcat opened the door and pulled himself into his new Black Hawk helicopter.

  Shelly would fly again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Amsterdam, Netherlands

  Mohammed Aslaki was hanging out two blocks from the outer area that led into the Muslim only neighborhood. He was the lookout. His job, as boring as it could be, was to see if any non-Muslim looked like they were going to try to cross the demarcation line. He hadn’t noticed the huge white man until his shadow blocked the light from across the street and then was past him.

  Mohammed reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone. He sent a short text message and put it back. Sometimes he would follow the mark to see if they were stupid enough to try to move into an area where even the police feared to tread. Fear was good, fear was power. Unfortunately fear also stopped the occasional fire or ambulance crew from coming inside their area. The community leaders just told them that it made everyone reliant on each other, which was better for the group.

  Now Mohammed observed the carriage of the big man walking straight into their area. Mohammed decided he would keep his ass right here on his step. Who knew, the big guy might have back-up. Mohammed decided that hearing the stories would be enough for him this time.

  He later figured that it was one of the smartest decisions he had made in his sixteen years on this earth.

  John passed the youth sitting on the step and could hear him rustling behind him. Probably a look-out, he thought. However, John had expected to be seen. Hell, he wanted to be seen! He thought about walking into the middle of the street and grinned. No need to be a complete idiot about this. It would look damn silly to be striding down the middle of the street, and then have to skedaddle over to the side if someone tried to run him down with a car. Now that, he concluded, would be fucking embarrassing.

  Dusk finally settled to true night as he walked the last three blocks. Sure enough dumb and dumber, two security types, were lounging against a couple of light poles. As John got closer the one to his left, dressed in a yellow jacket, left his pole and strode across the street to join his compatriot. Neither guy was very big. One was probably in his early twenties, the other not much older. Both had a long and lean look complete with menacing dark eyes that were turned his way.

  He didn’t want to scare these two right away. He continued walking and both stepped off the curb and moved toward him. The older of the two was wearing the yellow jacket, his friend was sporting a black one. Yellow jacket guy put out a hand as John stepped off of his own curb. He met them in the middle of the street.

  He said something John didn’t understand. John’s language skills weren’t up to snuff yet, so he merely shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. The guy on the right set his feet. Yellow jacket switched to English, “You will stop, this area is not for you.”

  John was a few steps from them, “Sorry bud, I’ve got people that I need to speak with and since they are in there I’m going in.” That was all the guy on the right needed to hear to throw his punch.

  To John it felt like he had all the time in the world to decide what to do. He considered putting his forehead in the way of the punch, that would most likely break dick-twattle’s hand. He dropped that option and considered breaking the fool’s neck.

  He sighed to himself, too deadly too soon.

  John’s hand reached out and casually caught jerk-off’s arm. He pulled a little to force ‘black jacket guy’ to place his weight on his right leg. John promptly smashed in the kneecap with a kick. Black jacket’s face went from angry to astonished and then filled with pain when his broken knee buckled underneath him. John released the arm.

  ’Yellow jacket dude’ on his left had pulled a baton out from under his jacket. He had his arm just about all of the way back to provide John a serious re-education using pain as the teacher. John raised his left arm to block the blow. Both men heard the explosive ‘crack’ when the baton slammed into John’s forearm. Yellow jacket was shocked when he noticed that half of his weapon was missing. He wasn’t in shock for long. One right cross to his jaw and he didn’t think about anything as his body was thrown back. He landed hard and didn’t move at all. The first prick was still making a horrible noise, so John grabbed a pistol and struck him in the head shutting him up. Now he had two comatose bodies.

  Sliding the pistol back into its holster he grabbed both guys and pulled them back to the curb where he dropped them. He didn’t mind killing someone, but it wouldn’t be due to his carelessness. They weren’t going to be run over by a car because he had left them in the street.

  Three more blocks to go. He made it all the way to the next block when he noticed three more guys waiting for him. It sounded like another four sets of footsteps were running in his direction.

  He cracked his knuckles and smiled into the night. He noticed a big chunk of brick sailing over the heads of the three in front of him. Son-of-a-bitch, it would actually have hit him. Good fucking arm whoever had thrown that. He reached out and caught the rock, stopping it in mid-flight as it reached him. Pulling the rock back to look at it, he bounced it in his hand a couple of times. That’s when he noticed a guy behind the group in front of him throw another rock.

  “If you wanted to play catch, you should at least let me know. Here, catch!” John watched the second rock coming his direction as he flung his rock straight at the thrower, hitting him in his chest. John heard the crunching of bones as the guy went flying back. John caught the second rock with his left hand. Two of the three in front of him had turned around to see what had happened to their buddy. Their air support, unfortunately, was not in good shape. His labored breathing and the blood coming out of his mouth would certainly attest to that.

  One of the sets of running steps went over to the rock thrower to see if they could help him. John knew there wouldn’t be much that could be done for him. He would bet a large sum of money that his lun
g was punctured. He would most likely die from asphyxiation.

  The three extras bolstered the group in front of him to six. John was ready to respond aggressively if they pulled guns, but he doubted that would occur since that would pull the government down on them. Their leader was the only one wearing the more traditional clothes, a robe looking shirt thing over pants. He quickly looked to see who was with him before he rattled off a string of commands. John understood just enough to know it was a command to take care of the infidel who dared to come into their area, but not much else.

  Funny, thought John, wouldn’t the original people who owned this country be a little peeved to have their hospitality treated so cavalierly? If the Muslim people hadn’t been allowed to stay here fifty years before, what would have been the situation for this country and the forty no-go zones right now? John doubted they would have religious extremists living right in the heart of one of their major cities.

  No appreciation sometimes.

  The other five in the group were wearing jeans and shirts. Two pulled out their own night-stick looking weapons with two others pulling knives.

  “No salaam?” John grinned as the group rushed him, his face turning hard. “Then no peace is returned.”

  John’s right fist slammed into the leader’s face, the man’s head rocketing back as his feet slipped out in front of him. By the time his head cracked on the concrete sidewalk, John was ducking the second guy’s knife. John knew that he needed to just break through to the other side. He could have foolishly stood his ground, and Mama Grimes had always been adamant that he shouldn’t throw the first punch. But he had damned better be throwing the last punch or she would light a fire on his ass when he got home from a lost fight.

  John twisted in a counter-circle, bringing his left hand with the rock up to slam into the third guy’s face, blood exploded from a broken nose as he ran full tilt into John’s hit.

  John threw up his right hand and caught one of the sticks on a downward blow. His left punch doubled-over prick number four. John took that sad-sack’s stick away and used it to parry a knife swing coming from his left. He quickly reversed his arm swing and cracked the second stick holder upside his head. That guy went down so quickly John wasn’t sure anyone was going to wake him back up.

  John set his right leg and swung his left in a snap kick to the knife holder’s head. It popped back with a loud ‘crack’. John was damn sure he wasn’t waking back up, not with a broken neck!

  John’s momentum carried him back around completing a one hundred and eighty degree turn. The knife fighter had recovered and had already turned to face him. While the ex-stick holder was busy trying to breathe John stepped up and cracked him in the back of his head. He went to kiss the pavement.

  Five down, one or two of them possibly forever. Broken nose guy was trying to get his bearings. A broken nose is its own sack of pain, the tearing it causes makes seeing a bitch. John hit that guy in the skull on his way to the last guy who was almost pissing himself trying to figure out how to come at John.

  While the little bit of eye movement from the knife wielder would have tipped John off, his better hearing allowed John to hear the rock coming at him from behind. John’s malicious grin caused the knife holder to pause momentarily, John whipped around and caught the rock. He then completed his circle and threw the same rock to crush the knife holder’s forehead. He dropped immediately.

  John turned back around towards the rock thrower. He walked towards the guy, who had put up his hands in fear. Obviously, this person was a hanger-on not a truly aggressive sort. Sucked to be him.

  John started bouncing the rock in his left hand, staring at the now blubbering guy. Fear had frozen him in his spot allowing John to cross half a block and walk straight up to him. John didn’t say a word, merely punched him hard enough to drop him where he stood.

  John looked over and noticed that the original rock thrower had died. John dropped his rock. He continued down the street leaving eight guys littering the street behind him.

  The silence he heard was the collective breath of surprise that occurred when violence happened so quickly and so forcefully. Those who lived in this area were used to owning their land, so to speak. Unfortunately, there is almost always someone bigger and stronger able to take it away from you. That was the point of negotiation. You negotiate so people like John didn’t arrive to force you to negotiate.

  John found the address of the tenement building and walked through the front door. The apartment he was looking for was up on the third floor and he took the stairs. The tenement was older, but the inside was in decent condition. This wasn’t like the slums in America. Rather it was a location of people who joined together for support. Unfortunately, ugly people had taken the idea of community and worked it into something evil. John reached the third floor and turned to his right. The apartment door he was looking for was two down on his left. As he came up to it, he could hear the music playing inside. The pricks were having a party! For their sakes he hoped it was a good one. He was about to knock on the door when he heard the distinct click of a shell being chambered. Son-of-a-bitch! These pricks knew he was coming and had set up the music to cover their actions. One thing about Nosferatu, John considered, they were nasty and they were fast but unlike fighting humans, they were rarely very smart.

  John drew both of his pistols making sure the safeties were off. He took two steps back to stand next to the far wall.

  John made two loud stomps on the ground and then kicked the door open, twisting to his left to get out of the doorway. A moment later all hell broke loose as guns inside the apartment riddled the far wall with their bullets. John could hear two pistols and one assault rifle being fired.

  John heard a command to stop firing. He set his foot and pushed off blazingly fast, twisting to his left so he could see back into the apartment. He saw enough of a person to aim a shot at their leg before finishing his track across the doorway opening. Fresh shots rang out with new bullet holes tearing up the far wall. John took a couple of steps away from the door then turned and started to run into the doorway. He had just started his run when a grenade came floating out into the hallway. He sped up to dive through the apartment’s doorway and covered his head.

  The explosion rocked the building. John pushed off the floor looking for any targets of opportunity. He found the guys had covered themselves well. He shot one he didn’t recognize as being a mark in the head, splattering his brains across the couch. A second turned and was trying to run to a back room when John shot him in the ass. That prick fell down, his dropped gun clattering ahead of him. Turning to his right, John used his left hand to shoot ass-munch again in the leg. He turned back to see the first person he had shot trying to grab his gun and swing it up enough to get a bead on John. John took a step and then kicked it out of his hand.

  John holstered his pistols then reached down to grab the first guy, easily pulling him up with one arm. “You just rolled snake eyes ass hole!”

  John dragged the first prick behind him as he walked toward the second. That guy was almost in a fetal position trying to grab both his ass and his leg at the same time. He was loudly cussing at John, fluently in at least three different languages. John grabbed his shirt and pulled him up a foot off the floor, before quickly shoving him back down and bouncing his head against the ground. It worked very well to silence his complaints.

  John appreciated the peace and quiet he was getting from this guy. John picked him up and threw him over his shoulder, then pulling up the second who was still complaining about his bullet hole. John noticed he had at least four areas of his own, pierced by either shrapnel or wood splinters. “Oh shut the fuck up, you got one measly bullet! I’m bleeding out of four holes, what a fucking pansy.”

  That only caused his second mark to start babbling in a language John didn’t recognize. John tightened his grip on the guy then quickly bashed his head against the wall, successfully shutting him up as his head lolled around.


  John threw him over his shoulder as well and walked out of the apartment. John turned on ‘fear mode’, making sure nobody would be opening a door to try to follow him. He could hear one door slam shut on the floor beneath him.

  John walked past the stairs to a door at the end of the hall and kicked it open. These were the stairs to go up to the roof and John took them. Once outside he laid his two marks on the ground and turned to secure the door as best he could. He pulled his phone out and sent a short nonsensical text message. He walked over to the edge of the building and looked down. He noticed a relatively large group starting to assemble a couple of buildings away. He shrugged his shoulders, there was no time to play. He walked back to his two marks as he heard something quickly moving in his direction.

  The Pod landed on top of the building, its dark color hiding it well. The door opened and Gabrielle stepped out. As John raised an eyebrow, she spoke. “Bethany Anne happens to be busy. Plus, according to her, these two pricks might have names we need so they’re going with us.”

  She checked both people and joked with John, “Couldn’t you have been just a little bit less violent? I’m going to have to give this prick a little blood to make sure he doesn’t check out on us too early.”