by LC Champlin
“Are you running that jamming broadcast?”
“Of course.” Not. “Why are you asking?”
“Because I have it on good authority that you didn’t.”
Lexa, no doubt. “Well, your authority is wrong.”
“I don’t really give a fuck. But you let those monsters loose, and now I hear from my guys that cannibals are crawling all over the neighborhood. Is that shielding frequency working or not?”
“Everything is functioning as it should. Our main worry is Esau. There’s also a government fleet arriving soon to pick up the civilians.”
“What a fucking mess, Serebus. You’re as destructive as Red Chief. Can’t you get your shit together?”
“My shit is inextricably linked to yours. I suggest you act in self-interest and come face your old friend Esau. Nathan out.” That fucking bastard chose now to have allegiance issues? Typical mercenary.
Nathan reached for the door, but the barrier banged open before he could touch it. The two mercenary guards stood on the other side, carbines leveled—at him.
“It’s fine.” Hands up, don’t shoot. “Go help Sarge repel Red Chief.”
“We’re under orders to keep you here until Sarge comes.”
“Is that so? So now he’s the only one who gives orders. I see. And how do you plan to go about keeping me here?” His heart rate ticked up, thudding in his ears, in his neck. His fingers tingled.
“We’re going to guard the exit. You’re going to stay put.” The mercenary bastard pulled the door shut in Nathan’s face.
Chapter 89
Hunted
What You Deserve - No Resolve
Concealing himself behind the roof’s guard wall, Albin waited until after Mr. Serebus entered the station before raising the walkie-talkie. “Amanda, do you copy?”
“I copy.”
“Are you near the radio station or water treatment facility?”
“I just got here. Red Chief is coming. I’m helping everybody get to safety until rescue comes.”
“Do not engage him.” Red Chief displayed atrocious timing, but the military would dissuade him from harming the civilians.
“I won’t. Is Nathan there? He was going to find you. I tried to signal, but I guess I was out of range.”
“He is inside the radio station.” Albin kept his tone matter of fact. “I require your assistance. Spread the word among the people who have vehicles: I need them to sound their horns for at least five seconds. Everyone must do so simultaneously.”
“Won’t that bring the cannibals faster?”
“They are already coming. If the repellent frequency’s radius continues to shrink at its present rate, it will shield this area a bit longer.”
“All right.” She seemed doubtful. “Do you want them to honk now?”
“Give me thirty seconds,” he replied as he started down the ladder.
“Got it.”
On the ground, he kept his back to the wall as he stationed himself outside the main entrance. The seconds crept past. More than thirty, then more than forty passed. He didn’t dare reach for the microphone and take his hand off his pistol. Why did they delay?
++++++++++++
The red-gold eyes in Nathan’s mind flared fully crimson. “Sarge was only a pawn—Red’s, Ken’s, Lexa’s, mine.” It was Nathan’s mistake for not disposing of him earlier, before his true allegiance appeared. “I hope he and Lexa will be very happy together, betraying each other to the highest bidder.”
Red Chief’s employer had wanted Redwood Shores because it possessed a large radio tower that they can access easily, among other benefits. But why did Lexa choose Nathan? Red claimed Nathan had a “benefactor.” Ken? Perhaps. Ken had mentioned someone who knew Nathan would “run the neighborhood into the ground.” Cheel? Surely. But why? Nathan shook his head. “It’s revenge.” Cheel wanted revenge for Nathan defeating him. Lexa wanted revenge for what Nathan had done to her little brother. But her brother brought it on himself, not that the truth had ever stopped family members of criminals from crying foul.
It all made sense on the surface. Still . . . He shoved his hands through his hair as he paced before the screens. “I’m missing something. I know it.”
A siren sounded outside, distant, like a tsunami or tornado warning but with more than one note. Or . . . like a howl worthy of Fenrir at Ragnarok, when he will snap his chains and consume the world.
Nathan’s teeth flashed in a grin.
++++++++++++
The hue and cry went up. Unlike horns in a traffic snarl, these blended into one long note. It rose like the trump of the legendary Herne the Huntsman’s horn as he led the Wild Hunt to snatch the souls of the unwary and herald the death of kings.
The station’s front door opened ahead of a mercenary. Albin swung in, slamming the pistol’s slide into the guard’s forehead and shearing a flap of skin from the skull. Blast, he’d meant to hit across the bridge of the nose, but the man had dropped his center of gravity.
White bone showed beneath the skin flap for an instant before the blood dyed it red. The man stumbled backward into the office, hemorrhaging from the gash.
These wastes of flesh had sold people to be hostages or to be used in sex trafficking. They provided guns to those who would use them to murder and threaten. They committed these heinous acts without an iota of remorse.
Albin punched forward with the barrel, crushing the man’s windpipe. The filth fell, choking, his hands about his throat.
“What in the—” The other mercenary had only enough time to raise his carbine before Albin side stepped and fired. The round found the target’s head. The contents of his cranium painted the wall behind him white and red.
++++++++++++
BANG!
Nathan dropped to his belly. No lead tore through the walls, though. Only one shot? He drew his Glock and crawled with burning ribs behind the first row of equipment shelves.
The Coleman lantern on the desk provided enough illumination to see anyone coming from the door by which Nathan had entered, as well as the hall that led to the back door.
One, two, three—Did Sarge come? Or Red? No. An even worse enemy. A shudder of dismay racked Nathan. Did cornered animals feel this way?
Stop. Red-gold eyes opened. His grip tightened around the Glock. God would give Albin into Nathan’s hands, just as He had given every other enemy.
The door creaked open. To shoot or not to shoot? Fuck it. Four shots peppered the door and the walls on either side.
Gunpowder tinged the air as his ears rang. No cries, no thud of bodies hitting the floor. No CS gas canister, no flashbang, and no grenade.
He should check to make certain the invader had left. Ah, but what if the aggressor outside wanted him to do that? If he left to investigate, he would leave the frequency transmitter unguarded. Any of his enemies would love to shut it down at this point, or hijack the station to broadcast their own program.
The back door settled closed. Either the person who had fired the weapon at the front door circled around to the back, or they had friends. But who could open the door except the guards, who had the keys?
Nathan backed farther into the darkness, along the wall toward the front door, but where he could still see the machine. Anyone who wanted to take it would need to come through his field of view—and his bullets.
Chapter 90
Stalked
Same Disease - Red
“Are you surprised to see me alive?” Albin’s voice echoed in the darkness.
“Not really.” Calm, damn it, sound calm. “For a moment I believed you were dead.” That moment ended when Nathan met Amanda at his return. “But you’ve been three steps ahead of me all this time, so I knew you wouldn’t let yourself be killed so easily.”
BANG!
Darkness enveloped Nathan. Blind—No, Albin had shot out the lantern. Now he would begin to stalk his quarry. Hunter versus wolf. But darkness loved the wolf.
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“If I am ahead of you at every turn, have you wondered why you are not dead, sir?” The voice came from the front of the room, near the control consoles.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to monologue about how you kept me alive because you wanted me to suffer.” Keep moving.
“Then you have given it thought.”
“What I thought about”—a sound to the left—“was why you betrayed me!”
BANG!
As the trigger reset from his shot, Nathan ducked behind another shelf.
“Betrayed? You have an extensive vocabulary. Please use it.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“If I had wanted to truly betray you, the maggots would now be cleaning your bones.” The voice moved across the room, in the vicinity of the frequency generator. Fuck.
“You’ve systematically stripped my holdings. That’s not betrayal?”
“Then why, after I have taken everything from you, are you alive?”
“You want to see me totally degraded. I’m sure you’ve already told the government lies about me.” Nathan eased left between two shelves. If he could get behind the bastard—
“I told them only what you were responsible for. You have brought the Law down upon yourself.”
“Yet you still had to take justice into your hands. Do you think we’re in an Alexandre Dumas book? To think, I trusted you with my life. I gave you power—” Thud. His foot struck a box. Ribs aching, he scrambled ahead.
“I never desired power.” The green lights from the transmitter winked out, then on as Albin passed them. Too risky to shoot; he might hit the machine.
Crunch of paper under foot to the left—
BANG-BANG!
Fuck, more misses.
“Sir, I have come to take you with me.”
“Drop the damned superiority complex! You think you’re a hunter? You’re still a wolf.”
“Homo homini lupus est. Men are wolves to each other, but you are rabid.”
“Will you put me down, hunter?”
“If I must.”
From the voice, Albin should be right . . . there! BANG! “Not if I kill you first!”
“You already did once. But I survived. The same God who brought you through fire and flood also preserved me. You are prideful; He has given you into my hands that I might humble you.”
Nathan bared his teeth. “How dare you try to use God against me!” Yet the bastard’s words burrowed into Nathan’s mind. I was spared. And so was he.
Outside, gunfire rattled. Sarge, Red, or the government? Did it matter?
“What profit is it if you conquer the world but forfeit your soul, Mr. Serebus?”
“Worry about your own soul.”
BANG!
“This from a man who attempts to murder his best friend?”
“It’s justice.” Sweat dripped down the side of Nathan’s nose. “You were family, and you betrayed me.”
“I never ceased to be family. Do you believe I want Janine to see her husband in this state? Will your son have a rabid beast for a father? Would your mother be proud of her son if she could see you now?”
“You just don’t appreciate power.” Acid churned in Nathan’s stomach, burning. His hands shook as his ribs grew more painful with each heartbeat.
Albin’s breathing—but the acoustics of the room skewed its location. “If I die, sir, I die knowing I discharged my duty to my family. Can you die knowing the same?”
His family? Janine. Davie. He hadn’t attempted to contact them for days, even with the sat phone. What kind of husband and father—
“I—Herk!” Shelf met back as Albin landed a glancing blow on Nathan’s shoulder.
“Be again the man who loved his family more than life. I will make you hear reason if it kills us both.” A flashlight snapped on, blinding. “Answer me: why did I leave you alive?”
“Revenge.” Nathan staggered back, grimacing. Fire burned in his sides, stopping breath.
“Incorrect.”
Get out of the light. His foot met air as Albin tripped him, and the rest of his body followed. “Uhg!” One-handed catch on the shelf. It gave way, sending an avalanche of equipment crashing around and off him. The Glock tore from his hand—disarmed!
“Why did I destroy your empire?”
“To steal my power!” Tactical get-up with his head guarded.
“Better.”
The light clicked off. Darkness deeper than blindness descended. Pain exploded in Nathan like the fist of God. Tuck the chin—it saved his head from cracking on the concrete as his back hit the floor.
Light on again. “Why did I take your power?”
Reports from automatic weapons popped outside. A moment to think—
“To rule.”
“Poor effort.”
Click. Off.
A palm-heel caught Nathan in the forehead, snapping his head back. This time his skull did bounce. Stars exploded across the darkness.
Click. Light on.
“Try again. Why did I take your power?”
“To deprive me of it.”
Click. Off.
Fuck! “Wait! Let me finish.” Arms up, close to his face in guard.
“Choose your words wisely.”
“You’ve never wanted power in the past. That’s part of why I trusted you. Whenever you took control of a situation . . .”
“Speak.”
“You did it to correct problems an incompetent leader caused.”
“What have I done with the power I confiscated?”
“Nothing productive—” His face stung from a bitchslap. But he made progress; Albin could take his head off with a power slap if he wanted.
“Details.”
“You handed some of it away, and some you dissolved.”
“Why?”
“Because you thought I was wrong—Erk!” A bomb blast of pain on his right side. He curled around it. Can’t . . . breathe!
“Reconsider the wording.”
“Easy!” Nathan gasped. “Easy. Let me . . . breathe. You did it because I was . . .” It hurt worse than the fucking beatdown to admit. “I was in the wrong. I-I lied to you and used you. I broke my promise to you.”
Pausing to take a rasping breath, which made the pain worse, Nathan rolled to his knees to lean against the shelf. Fuck it all, Albin had a point. But after this much strife, what did one do? Throw their hands up and laugh it off as a mistake? No. Besides, Albin had injured Nathan too.
Click, rooooll—
From across the room. What the—
Hissssss.
Chapter 91
Cornered
Digging My Own Grave - Five Finger Death Punch
What the—Nathan’s eyes and lungs burned with fire, is if he’d poured cayenne pepper into them. Tear gas! Wallowing to his feet, shoving forward, he rammed past Albin to charge through the front entrance.
Probably a trap, but anything to get away from the fire in the air and the enemy in his face. Forearms up to shield his face, knees bent. Staying tight to the wall, he moved into the entry. Tears streamed from his eyes, turning everything to a Vaseline blur.
The front door burst open, admitting a squad of men. A giant led them. Not Goliath, but Sarge. Nathan threw himself behind a table, the same one he’d kicked across at a pair of mercenaries a few days ago. Sarge had been at his side then, not at his throat.
“Serebus, you fucker! Get up. You need to broadcast that frequency while there’s still time.”
“Sarge, is that you, ya ol’ traitor?” Red Chief’s exaggerated Southern drawl rumbled from the control room.
The hulking mercenary’s head snapped up. “Esau. Don’t move, Serebus. I’m not done with you.” After donning gas masks and raising their carbines, Sarge and his men stacked at the door. They pushed in.
Where the hell had Albin gone? Esau’s tomahawk probably already ran red with
the traitor’s blood. Nathan’s stomach dropped. Acid swirled, searing up into his throat. He spat.
The arrogant Brit bastard’s words rang in his ears like the aftereffects of gunshots: prideful . . . humble you . . . rabid . . . family.
“No, you’re wrong.” Shaking his head to clear the fog, Nathan stumbled to the exit. In the control room, the Red Devil Goats would attempt to broadcast their signals. A few minutes remained before the end of the programming window.
Only one way to stop them. On the floor lay a mercenary corpse, blood covering its face from a scalp wound. Judging by the gore-angel on the ground, he’d thrashed before he died. That hadn’t harmed his AR, though.
Now armed, Nathan crept down the hall and into the side storage room, which provided access to the power cables that snaked through the window from the generators.
He pulled the plugs from the cords that ran to the broadcast machinery. Click—tac knife out. With a few flicks of the wrist, he removed the ends of the power cables. Without the right time and equipment, they would do the mercs no good. Unfortunately, this would cut the repellent frequency’s radius to the point that it would barely cover the station. The residents outside would be on their own. Well, they had betrayed him, so it was just deserts. . . . Right? The military had probably rescued them all at this point anyway.
Gunshots and shouting filtered through the walls.
Edge around the corner . . . Clear. He hurried back down the hall to the station’s front door. Let them fight it out among themselves.
Daylight blazed down on him, forcing him to squint as he ducked from the building. In the parking lot rattled the tail end of a firefight. At this point, few mercs remained, since both sides of the divided Goats had suffered losses over the past week.
Speaking of which: “Amanda,” he whispered in the radio, “where are the cannibals?”
“Did you find Albin?” she snapped.
“No.” Albin had found him. “The cannibals—where are they?”
“They’re coming across the last road before the dog park. They’ll be at the water facility in a few minutes unless they start running.”
