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Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4)

Page 28

by Jack Murphy


  * * *

  Two dark forms fell in front of Deckard.

  He never heard the gunshots, his ears ringing, his brain feeling like it was exploding behind his eyes. He came up on all fours, gunfire raging around him. Then the single shots could be faintly heard above everything else. It had to be Aslan, Nikita’s sniper partner, down at the end of the corridor, firing over the prostrate forms of his teammates.

  Deckard forced himself up, holding his AK loosely in his hands as he tried to force his body to function. Tripping, he stumbled up against the wall and cut loose with a burst from the hip, spraying fire downrange. Next to him, he felt Nate grabbing his parka, the former MARSOC Marine also trying to pull himself up and get back into the game.

  “We can do this,” Deckard said, although he couldn’t hear his own voice.

  Walking on wobbly feet, he helped Nate up and then ran to the nearest Kazakh, pulling him off the ground. The dead bodies of Oculus soldiers and a few of their own men littered the ground. Deckard pushed himself deeper into the corridor. Seeing their commander stagger forward, the others had no choice but to will themselves on to the completion of their mission.

  Large steel doors hung ajar where the Oculus commandos had emerged. Deckard glanced inside and was greeted with the popping of several more shots. Sidearming his last frag grenade through the door, he held back one of the Kazakhs who, in a moment of disorientation, tried to chase the grenade through the door. It went off with a whoosh. The mercenaries followed the explosion inside, where they found another large chamber filled with dead or dying enemies.

  There was only one way forward, and Deckard charged, just as the ground began to shake beneath their feet.

  * * *

  Jiahao fired a burst from his Tavor rifle, the shots peeling back the Russian’s scalp. He flew backwards with arms stretched into the air before sprawling across the floor.

  Driven back by the mercenaries, the Oculus leader was not leaving any room for further discussion from his men. An Iranian backed away from the device as Jiahao moved to it and began keying in the destruct sequence. They were out of time to execute their planned attack, so he would bring the house down on top of them before he let the imperialist killers-for-hire take control of the geophysical weapon.

  Shun strode into the chamber, covered in someone else’s blood, which had drenched his overwhites in crimson. A light vibration was already thrumming under the soles of their boots.

  “Orders?” Shun asked.

  “This battle is over, but the war continues,” Jiahao said.

  “We fight to the death.”

  “Not here. Take whatever men you can and make your way to the garage. Blow the charges and save yourselves if you can.”

  “It was an honor, Jiahao.”

  “And you, Shun. You have been a good soldier.”

  Shun offered a small bow and then disappeared into a side tunnel. The Iranian looked over at Jiahao, wondering if he was to receive a pardon as well. Jiahao nodded toward the tunnel that Shun had escaped into.

  “Go.”

  The Oculus commando did not need to be told twice.

  Jiahao unslung his rifle, gripped it by the stock and barrel, then smashed it down on the control pad several times, destroying the keypad and touchscreen. The weapon would destroy itself and everyone around it in minutes.

  * * *

  Deckard recoiled as shards of glass-like ice came crashing down in front of the entrance to the geothermal power chamber, where the device was located. The entire ice base was beginning to vibrate and become unstable. The roof was already deteriorating, the entire entrance to the antechamber collapsed and blocked off.

  “There has to be away around,” Nate said. “Let’s skirt around the edge and look for another tunnel leading in.”

  Deckard nodded. As they backtracked looking for another way into the chamber, he saw that Nate, Aslan, and two other Samruk mercenaries were still on his back. The others had become separated, engaged in other firefights, or killed.

  “Look, I’m calling landslide on this objective. This place is toast. It’s over,” Deckard said loud enough so the men could hear him over the cracking ice above their heads and under their feet.

  “Is there a but in there somewhere?” the former Marine asked.

  Everyone was looking for a pardon at this point.

  “I need a confirmation on the super soldiers’ and the weapon’s destruction. They might be the only thread that can lead us back to their masters. You can roll; I don't have the heart to order any more men to their deaths today.”

  Aslan said something in Russian.

  “What was that?” Nate asked.

  “He said, ‘Fuck that,’” Deckard replied, rolling his eyes.

  “Let’s go, the enemy is probably heading for an escape hatch anyway. We’ll get out that way.”

  “Sure about that?” Deckard asked with a frown. Clicking his hand mic, he then spoke into his radio. “Landslide, I say again, landslide!”

  It was the code word to evacuate everyone off of the objective immediately.

  “Landslide, landslide!” other voices shouted over the assault net, making sure everyone heard the order. Just then, a large chunk of ice broke free from the ceiling and crashed just behind Aslan. The walls on both flanks were also starting to shake violently. The mercenaries looked around them with some hesitation as snow shook from the ceiling like massive flakes of dandruff.

  Their distraction was broken by a single gunshot that cracked through the corridor.

  Smoke wisped from the barrel of Deckard’s Kalashnikov, his single shot having felled an Oculus commando dashing across the corridor up ahead from one tunnel to another. Several shots greeted the mercenaries in return as more of them quickly crossed the corridor. Taking a knee, Deckard let loose a burst just in front of the feet of another Oculus shooter, driving him backwards into the passageway he had just been in.

  “You three go after the others who got away, I’ll take on the straggler,” Deckard ordered. The one he had forced back looked like a bigger guy. It was just a hunch, but one he wanted to follow. They were all in at this point anyway.

  “Got it,” Nate said, and took the three men down the side passage in pursuit, each of them hopping over the dead body Deckard had made.

  Deckard edged around the corner and into the tunnel on the other side of the wider corridor. His rifle was shaking in his hands, reciprocating the vibrations that ran up the length of his body. The device had obviously been put into the geophysical version of a Chernobyl meltdown. Oculus was going for a last-ditch effort, knowing that the mercenaries were closing in. In the distance, a shadow shuffled through the dark.

  Firing a snapshot off, a burst instantly responded back to Deckard, cutting through the air inches for his side. He was staring down his sights, looking for a second sight picture, when the tunnel suddenly collapsed behind him. Deckard scrambled forward, chancing the gunfire as snow and ice came splashing down behind him. Nearly losing his footing, the floor gave out and Deckard found himself momentarily in free fall before landing hard on his back. The ice was cracked apart beneath him.

  The ceiling opened up above him, letting in the last light of dusk as he slid down into the abyss. Sliding into the darkness, Deckard skidded around the ice, momentarily going upside down before he kicked his boots a few times and managed to right himself. In front of him, he caught the vague outline of another human being on the same trajectory with him.

  Determined to at least go out with a fight, Deckard sat up and blasted off rounds at his target as fast as he could pull the trigger. Realizing someone was above him, the Oculus member sprayed fire behind him, the shots disappearing into the collapsing ice walls. The floor continued to cant downwards, terminating in what looked like a bottomless drop. Sensing his impending doom, the Oculus super soldier managed to get up on one knee as he slid down. At the last moment, he vaulted into the air like a gymnast and flew right over the pit. He grabbed the ice with h
is bare hands and scrambled up to safety.

  Deckard knew his hunch had been right, that he was tracking one of the Chinese test-tube experiments, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that. All he had time for was to free his ice axe and execute an extremely weak attempt at jumping up and over the chasm. The American hurtled through the air like a retarded puppy and slammed the ice axe in just as he hit the wall in front of him. Every joint and muscle in Deckard’s body screamed in pain.

  Somewhere below, his Kalashnikov fell into the pit.

  Forcing himself to ignore his body’s protests, he grabbed for the ice tool on his belt and swung it into the ice. Using only his upper-body strength, he muscled his way up the ice wall, even as everything collapsed down around him. A fissure erupted right up the middle of the ice he was climbing, causing him to lose his grip on both tools at the same time. For a second, he dangled in the air, hanging by the lanyard he had managed to get around his wrist on the handle of the ice tool. Reaching out, he grabbed both and pushed himself, swinging arm over arm.

  Grunting in pain and exhaustion, he reaching the lip of the wall. Just as he got the ice tool up over the edge and began to pull himself up, a hand came over the edge straight at him and grabbed his parka, dragging him up.

  Chapter 35

  Greenland

  The charges detonated in sequence, multiple puffs of smoke going off and forming an explosive ring around the garage entrance. A plume of gray smoke floated over the vehicles, the hatch to the chamber blown open. Turning over the engine, Oculus commandos in the hulking treaded tractor guided the light swing out of the facility. Hauling six sleds packed with military equipment, the tractor’s snow treads dug in. Just as the caterpillar-looking monstrosity was pulling out, Shun and two more Oculus members materialized from the connecting tunnel and jumped up onto the last sled.

  Nate, Aslan, and two other mercenaries spilled out into the garage, their rifle barrels sweeping across its breadth in search of targets. They were just in time to see the ass end of the light swing pull out of the garage and disappear onto the tundra.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Nate said, yelling above the sound of the ice base shaking itself apart. One of the buttresses holding up a wall broke, causing snow to flow into the garage in a miniature avalanche.

  Aslan slung his sniper rifle and ran to the side of the garage where some gear was stacked. Reaching down, he yanked a green tarp off a pallet.

  The smile on his face seemed oddly out of place given the fact that the roof was about to collapse at any moment, but the other mercenaries could not help but smile back.

  * * *

  Deckard landed on his back and immediately swung his ice axe toward where he thought the enemy soldier was. The Chinese commando easily swatted the axe away and clamped down on Deckard’s wrist, squeezing it in his hand with an iron grip.

  “It is about time that we met face to face, Deckard.”

  Deckard looked up at him, his opponent’s brown eyes piercing him with their gaze.

  “I’m called Jiahao, and I have waited a long time for this.”

  “I’m called go fuck yourself,” Deckard replied, just as the platform of ice suddenly crumbled again. Deckard’s vision was obscured by the crashing ice, but he knew he was falling. Sliding down the fissure that had opened up under him, he grasped for the ice axe hanging from his wrist while swinging the ice tool wildly, hoping to stick it in something, anything, to break his fall. Once he had both tools in his hands, he frantically tried to shove them into the ice and slow himself down. One stuck, but then broke free from the ice.

  The best he could do at that point was keep both feet together when he slammed into the bottom. He came down hard, landing in a shallow pool of water, and had the wind knocked out of him. With a groan, he rolled over onto his side, the freezing water seeping through his jacket and startling him back to his senses.

  It was never enough to kill him, just enough to hurt really, really badly.

  The fissure had grown above him, the last light of the day streaming inside what appeared to be a naturally made ice tunnel. Whether it was entirely natural or formed by warm water exiting the ice base from their shower and chow hall facilities was impossible to guess at the moment. The ground still shook beneath his feet, the scary part being that it wasn’t really ground, but more ice that could come apart at any second.

  Deckard staggered to his feet and tried to get some feeling into his hands, messing around with several failed attempts before he finally tethered his axe and ice tool to his belt. With his Kalashnikov long gone, he drew the Glock 19 from its holster. Jiahao was somewhere down here, and having seen his abilities firsthand, he didn’t believe for a moment that the Oculus leader had died in the fall.

  Water gushed around his boots as he looked up at the pockmarked ice at the top of the tunnel, then back down in search of Jiahao. A chunk of ice broke free and splashed into the water next to Deckard, the entire cavern groaning as the elasticity of the ice was strained by invisible electromagnetic energy from the device, most likely buried in the ruins of the ice base at this point.

  “Deckard,” a voice echoed from the darkness of the tunnel, “how does it feel to know that your country is in decline? To have your power challenged?”

  Holding his pistol in both hands, Deckard cautiously moved forward.

  “China suffered decades of humiliation at America’s hands, but now it is our time. It is our right to take what belongs to us!”

  The tunnel shook again, Deckard’s boots sliding on the slick ice. Half soaked, he was beginning to shiver already.

  “We have suffered your spiritual pollution long enough,” Jiahao wailed like a child.

  Deckard squinted to see through the dark, searching for his quarry. The Chinese soldier sounded like a full-blown fanatic, a frustrated young man pumped full of communist propaganda. Frustrated or not, the kid was clearly one of the vat-grown super soldiers Will had described. Reaching into his pocket, Deckard pulled the elastic band of a headlamp over his head, but did not dare to turn it on yet. Activating a “shoot-me” light in the confines of a dark cave would be the quickest way for him to receive a tight burst from Jiahao’s Tavor rifle.

  “You met the mage, Deckard. I know he told you these things.”

  The voice came as a hiss, over Deckard’s shoulder, behind him, in front of him, it was impossible to tell where he was. Everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

  The American flinched as the roof of the tunnel collapsed behind him, plunging him into the darkness. The rumbling continued as ice crumbled and fell around him, the vibrations under his feet rattling the tunnel to pieces. Hearing another section of the tunnel collapse, Deckard turned and ran.

  Now he reached up and turned on his head lamp. The pillar of light cut through the darkness, reflecting off the ice and the stream of water as he splashed through it, slipping every few steps. The tunnel continued to collapse behind him, falling in one massive chunk after the other.

  In front of him he could see glimpses of Jiahao running for his life as well. The Chinese commander was sprinting at full tilt, striding like a marathon runner. Deckard was lagging behind, battered, beaten, and unable to get any traction on the ice as he ran. The thuds got louder and louder in his ears as the tunnel imploded, nipping right at his heels. Deckard skidded to a stop as a car-sized piece of ice dropped down right in front of him.

  For a second, claustrophobia set in, Deckard’s heart racing as he feared being entombed alive. Images of Jacob, buried underneath an avalanche, fluttered in front of his eyes for a split second. Feeling his way around the block of ice, Deckard pushed the fatalistic thoughts from his mind and forced his legs to carry him forward.

  Dodging several more ice blocks, Deckard again caught sight of Jiahao just as the Chinese commando lost his footing and went face-first into the stream. The Oculus commander quickly recovered and got back to his feet. Up ahead he could now see a way out, the tunnel terminating in anothe
r 100 meters. Moonlight formed a glow around the exit, summoning them.

  Stumbling forward, Deckard’s felt his quadriceps seizing up, the cramping slowing him down. He gritted his teeth and fell forward more than running forward. The tunnel was coming down in sections behind him, each one sounding with a boom.

  Now Jiahao was showing his own weakness as he fell on his face and split his head open on the ice. Deckard was actually catching up with him in the final 25-meter dash of their lives. Jiahao looked back at him with a snarl, bright red blood running down his face.

  Deckard slammed into him as the final section of the tunnel collapsed. A sneeze of snow and ice pushed them both the rest of the way out, flinging them through the air and back out onto the tundra.

  * * *

  Nate steered his snowmobile toward the light swing, kicking up a spray of snow in their wake. One of the Kazakhs held on to the seat behind him, pointing toward the tractor and sleds up ahead. Aslan and another Kazakh came up on their flank, riding their own snowmobile. The former Marine had to admit, this had been the most batshit crazy deployment he had ever been on, and that was saying a lot.

  The twin snowmobiles raced up alongside the rear end of the light swing. The industrial-grade treaded tractor effortlessly hauled the six connected sleds behind it like the Arctic locomotive it was. Nate hit the throttle and took them right alongside the trail sled, just as a shot rang in his left ear. The Kazakh trooper took down a white-clad Oculus member who had spotted them. The corpse slid off the side of the sled, forcing Nate to react abruptly, nearly flinging the Kazakh off his seat as he swerved around the body.

  The Samruk trooper didn't waste any time once Nate got them realigned, jumping up onto the platform. Standing up on the seat, Nate guided himself as closely as possible to the sled and then vaulted off. The Kazakh caught his wrist and pulled him up. Aslan and the other Kazakh were repeating the maneuver, but the staccato bursts of gunfire coming from up ahead made it clear that they had been compromised.

 

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