by Jack Murphy
The sled was packed full of pallets, giving something for the Samruk mercenaries to take cover behind. Taking a knee behind a pallet strapped down to the bed of the sled, they returned fire on several muzzle flashes coming from the three Oculus members who had escaped them earlier. Nate gained target acquisition and gently stroked the trigger as he transitioned from target to target until the guns fell silent. By the time he finished, their two Samruk comrades had joined them behind the pallet.
Then the second wave hit them hard. The pallet began disintegrating under the onslaught of incoming fire, the four mercenaries crowding behind what little cover they had. The two Kazakhs reached for fragmentation grenades, primed them, and made ready to overhand toss both of them farther up onto one of the forward sleds.
When they stood up to throw, one chucked his toward the target. The other immediately collapsed with a gunshot wound to the head. Nate flung himself forward toward the frag grenade as it bounced across the sled. With no desire to be a martyr, he quickly picked it up and threw it before the fuse burned down. The grenade went off in mid-air, just a split second after the first. Severed arms flew up in the air. The grenades had successfully killed at least a couple of Oculus shooters.
Between their cover and the enemy were two nearly empty sleds, resulting in an up-close-and-personal free-fire zone, both forces beating back against each other as they moved across the tundra. Aslan took advantage of the chaos caused by the grenade blast and began returning fire with his HK417. One, two, three, the enemy began dropping like flies under the sniper's precision fire. Identifying where their cover was weak, Aslan effectively put shots through pallets of dry goods and other sundries. It was an effective tactic until he took a round through the shoulder.
The Kazakh sniper howled. The parasympathetic reaction of his body upon being struck by a 5.56mm round was to pitch backwards. Nate watched as the sniper fell right off the back of the sled, dropping into a heap in the snow behind them.
“Fuck my life,” he said to himself, the words lost amidst all the gunfire.
Turning his attention back to the firefight, he saw one of the Chinese soldiers sprinting straight across the open sleds toward their position. It was a suicidal maneuver at best. The former Marine leveled his weapon, his trigger finger applying pressure a nanosecond too late. The Chinese commando bent at the knees as he approached and launched himself into the air. Spiraling through the open space in some kind of Olympic backflip, Nate struggled to get his sights on target, hopelessly squeezing off round after round from his Kalashnikov.
Shun landed behind the pallet with a thud, a side kick instantly delivered to Nate's midsection. His ribs exploded in pain, doubling him over. The Kazakh mercenary nearby was not so lucky. He didn’t even have the chance to move his rifle barrel from downrange toward his new target, the sprint and jump had been nothing short of a display of inhuman abilities.
The genetically enhanced commando swung both of his firsts toward either side of the Kazakh’s head, slamming into his skull like twin pistons, which effectively pulped his brain. The Kazakh fell dead instantly. Unable to catch his breath, Nate had done his best to crawl away, dragging his rifle behind him. Shun snorted in disgust at the sight of the Marine trying to keep himself in the fight. Kicking the Kalashnikov away, he then lifted Nate with one hand and threw him forward onto the empty sled.
“Leave him to me!” Shun yelled to his comrades.
Two remaining Oculus gunmen lowered their weapons. By now it was dark and the only light came from those on the tractor. The shadows played across the Oculus commando’s face as he looked toward Nate.
“Yankee garbage,” he sneered at the American.
Shun strode over to Nate and crouched down.
“How does it feel to know that you are about to die, just as your country is? How does it feel to realize that you are utterly helpless and impotent in the face—”
Shun froze in mid-sentence, his face turning the color of ash. Seven inches of ice axe were sticking out of the side of his neck. Nate pulled backwards, yanking the serrations of the axe through Shun’s throat, casting a spray of blood.
“Semper Fi, you motarded motherfucker.”
Shun grasped his neck, his hands slick with the liquid as he made one last futile effort to stop his life from draining from his body. With a gurgle of blood bubbling from his lips, Shun’s hands fell away and he lay still.
Nate reached inside his jacket and pulled free his Glock 19 pistol.
The two Oculus commandos who had been watching, expecting Shun to brutally mutilate Nate with his bare hands, now looked at each other.
In unison, they both dived off the edge of the sled into the snow.
* * *
Deckard rolled through the snow with Jiahao. The two tumbled over one another, wrestling for control. The American pushed his Glock into Jiahao’s chest and pulled the trigger, but somehow his adversary managed to slap the pistol to the side at the very last moment. Rolling to the bottom of the embankment, Jiahao planted a foot on Deckard’s stomach and launched him into the air, flinging him into the snow. His Glock went spinning away into a snow drift.
Having escaped the collapsing tunnel, the two now found themselves outside in the darkness of night. The moon cast the snow in surreal, muted colors, gusts of wind blowing snow around the two men. Winded, but not out of the fight, Deckard rolled over and drew his ice tool and axe, holding one in each hand.
Jiahao stood and dusted the snow off his parka with a laugh.
“You are a funny one, Deckard,” the Chinese commando mocked him. “But sure, OK.”
Deckard assumed a fighter’s stance, readying himself for combat. Jiahao bounded forward, parrying left, then right, easily avoiding Deckard as he flailed with both weapons. With one of Deckard’s arms out at full extension at the bottom of a swing, Jiahao reached over and wrenched his opponent’s wrist, snapping it like a twig. The Chinese commando tore the axe away and cast it into the snow, then snatched away the ice tool as Deckard tried to backpedal.
The Samruk mercenary instantly knew that this was how Pat had felt. He was simply outclassed. It wasn’t that he was outmatched by a margin, like when Delta Force operators went head to head in a shooting competition, or when Rangers competed to see who could run a faster two miles in full kit. No, Deckard was inferior by a landslide, an avalanche that was cascading down on top of him.
Knowing his right hand was broken, Deckard reached around with his left and unsheathed his Company Knife, searching for an opening in Jiahao's defenses. The truth was that the commando did not have any defense; he was pure offense, moving so fast that Deckard could not even touch him. Jiahao reached out and did something too quickly for Deckard to recognize. All he knew was that the knife had been torn from his grasp. Jiahao smiled as he tossed the blade over his shoulder.
Jiahao then shook his head before launching into a crescent kick. Deckard bucked backwards, avoiding the brunt of it, but the glancing blow off of his head was nearly enough to knock him unconscious. Falling to his knees, Deckard propped himself up with one hand in the snow.
“Shall we end this charade?” Jiahao said, sounding almost bored.
Beneath him, Deckard could feel the gentle vibrations of the device, still humming away in some collapsed chamber under the ice. He was only going to get one more chance at this. Deckard knew that it would only take one more solid hit from the Oculus leader to kill him.
Jiahao reached down and grabbed Deckard by the hood of his jacket, pulling him up. On his way, Deckard reached out with a gloved hand, going right up into Jiahao’s groin. His fingers clasped around a smooth egg under Jiahao’s trousers. The Chinese commando drew a sharp breath as Deckard crushed one of his nuts with all of the strength he had left. The testicle exploded in his hand like an overripe tomato.
Dropping to the ground, Jiahao clutched his beanbag in agony, his howls and cries carrying in the wind. Meanwhile, Deckard felt like he had been run over by a tank from the beating
he had taken. His body had red-lined a long time ago, and now it was simply running on some kind of muscle memory developed through years of military training and combat experience.
“Damn, you talk too much,” Deckard mumbled as he stumbled off, leaving Jiahao to mourn his manhood. “All this bullshit about Red China and the end of the world. Don’t you ever shut up?”
Jiahao rolled back and forth sobbing. Not even the Chinese version of Captain America had steel balls, apparently. Deckard groaned as he got down on a knee and started pawing through the snow. His knees ached, his elbows ached, every muscle in his body felt like a frozen T-bone steak. His hand hung limply as he held it against his chest. It didn’t phase him much, but he knew the pain would come soon.
Batting the snow around with his good hand, he continued his search.
The Chinese super soldier whimpered as he tried to breath.
“OK, dammit,” Deckard cursed. “I’ll have some of that General Tso's chicken.”
The mercenary looked up at the dark horizon for a second, realizing that the ground had ceased to shake under his feet. With a smirk, he went back to digging around. The device had finally burned itself out or run out of power. Now it was buried under tons of ice and going nowhere fast, if ever.
“Ah, here we go,” Deckard said as he reached into the snow. “Shall we end this charade?” he said in a whiny, high-pitched voice.
He winced as he stood, taking a deep breath as he righted himself. Jiahao was coughing like he had the dry heaves, his face having turned bright red. Standing above him, Deckard angled the muzzle of his Glock toward Jiahao’s head.
Jiahao looked up at him, a flash of fury crossing his eyes once more.
The Glock spat five bullets, making another patch of white snow turn red.
Chapter 36
China
Crickets chirped and a stream gently gushed alongside the finely manicured lawns of the imperial garden. Zhongnanhai was a place of peace and tranquility, a place of culture and tradition, where communist party officials carried out their administrative tasks. Inside one of the many pavilions on the compound, the stillness was suddenly broken.
Black and white pieces of a game board flew through the air, a door slammed, and a communist party leader disappeared into an adjacent room as he attempted to regain control over his emotions. The pieces of the board game lay scattered between two men who sat on antique chairs crafted during a past dynasty. The monochromatic game pieces belonged to an encirclement board called wei bo. It was a game of both encirclement and counter-encirclement.
“He did not take that well,” the Iranian said.
“Would you?” the Russian countered.
The Iranian’s brow furrowed, his short white beard shifting beneath his jowls. Well into his middle years, the Iranian was the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s covert action branch—Quds Force. Like the Russian, he had been summoned to Beijing to oversee the final stages of a plan that had been years in the making. Now that plan lay in ruin, scattered across the game board in chaos.
“Perhaps not. Do you know the relation?”
“His grandson,” the Russian answered, his expression flat and unreadable.
“They both knew the risks.”
“My people will not be pleased by this development. The Kremlin may very well have me liquidated for this.”
“They have no exposure. The Americans are already ramping up to strike ISIS in the Middle East. The misdirection was a master stroke by the old man,” the Quds Force leader said, nodding toward the door the Chinese official had just exited. “You know what the Chinese say about a win-win situation?”
“I imagine there is some clever proverb.”
“Indeed. In a win-win situation, China wins twice. Even if we lose, we still win. America sinks itself back into another protracted, unwinnable conflict in the Middle East, giving us increased freedom of movement to pursue our own objectives.”
“We will see.”
The Iranian shook a cigarette out of his pack and lit it up, seemingly unconcerned by the massive operational failure they had been dealt by the American mercenaries.
“At the most, this will be attributed to terrorists from Chechnya, Iraq, and Xiangyang. The back-up plan for the back-up plan,” the Iranian said, leaning over and picking up the encirclement board. Setting it down on the table, he took another drag on his cigarette and looked over at the Russian.
“Why don’t we play another game?”
* * *
Will walked out of the office building in Tampa, muttering something to the security guard on the way out. Having worked through the entire crisis, Will was now in desperate need of a shower, a shave, and a solid eight hours of sleep. Instead, he was planning to visit his favorite titty bar downtown.
“Fuck me,” he said, popping a cigarette between his lips as he thought over recent events. “Chalk up a win for the good guys.”
He lit up with his stainless-steel lighter, on the side of which was engraved an anchor, trident, and eagle. Images from a past life.
Deckard had managed to pull off the impossible, all while the American government and people were distracted by a dozen other emergencies at home and abroad. Whatever had happened, they would now have to convince their own bureaucracy that America was under attack by Iran, Russia, and China. For the first time, Will had the proof. But would anybody listen?
Reaching into his pocket, Will thumbed the automatic lock remote for his car, opened the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat. Exhaustion was washing over him as his body dumped the adrenaline he had been running on for days.
Looking down at his wrist, Will eyed the red metal bracelet he had worn for decades. Many intelligence analysts wore black KIA bracelets for fallen soldiers, a reminder of who they are supporting, and of the life-and-death consequences of their work. Will’s was for a former soldier who was officially listed as missing in action in some Third World shithole. As hard as he tried, he could never get the full story out of anyone, maybe because no one knew the truth.
Starting the car, he pulled out of the parking lot, through the security checkpoint, and out onto the highway. Staring out at the road in front of him, Will shook his head. Suddenly, he broke out laughing.
“Something wrong with that family,” he said under his breath between laughs. “His father was a piece of work too.”
The red MIA bracelet slipped out from his shirt sleeve as he spun the wheel. It read, Sergeant Sean Deckard. Missing in action. 20JUL88.
* * *
Twin lines ran through the snow, a trail made by two feet dragging their way forward. Fresh snow crunched as it compacted under each footstep. The lone figure limped across Greenland’s expanse, hugging himself with both arms to try to contain the pain as well as to stay warm. He was broken, bruised, and expended, but still alive.
Deckard tripped, stumbled, but regained his footing—before continuing to stagger some more. He had been sleeping on his feet. Cresting the top of a gentle slope, he looked down and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw his men. Two platoons of mercenaries stood assembled below, having evacuated the ice base before it collapsed. Fedorchenko and Shatayeva were organizing the men, but there were no high fives or celebrations. A lot of good soldiers had died on this mission. Too many.
In the skies above, the Northern Lights flared. The fluttering green streaks were created by light bouncing off the gases of the upper atmosphere. Deckard stood and watched the lights, cast in the ethereal awe of reality. The Arctic was beautiful and deadly in some of the same ways as other parts of the world he had visited, but none of those places combined beauty and desolation the way the Arctic Circle did.
It was the emptiness, the lack of human presence that made the Arctic so different. It was so quiet, just the sound of wind in his ears. Without any artificial light sources, the stars in the sky were brilliant, bold in a way that could never be observed in most parts of the world. Craning his neck, Deckard looked straight up
into the sky. Above the Northern Lights, the Milky Way could be seen bubbling amongst the stars.
Deckard smiled.
It was a good night to be alive.
Epilogue
Three days later
In a faraway land, a dark castle sat at the summit of a mountain. Circular clouds the color of coal slowly spun in concentric circles above, the occasional burst of lightning making the heavens glow. Inside the castle, long halls made of fieldstone stretched into the darkness, only illuminated by a few flickering torches.
The mage waited in one of the antechambers, breathing slowly, waiting with his back turned toward the door. Soft footsteps approached, only audible once they grew near, just inside the chamber itself.
“I have been waiting for you,” the mage said.
“And I you,” the blade master replied.
The mage turned to face the blade master. The intruder stood before him, bristling with weapons, blades, swords, knives, and projectile weapons stashed in pouches and sheaths spread across his entire body.
“You asked the weight of the cauldrons,” the mage said. “You have my respect.”
“Did you really expect otherwise?”
The mage considered this for a moment.
“No, I did not.”
The blade master circled around the portal in the center of the room.
“Jiahao mentioned you.”
The mage paused. “You faced him in combat?”
“Yes. You were close to Jiahao?” the blade master asked, noting the mage’s hesitation.
“Yes.”
“Your son?”
“My grandson.”
“If it means anything to you, we fought in hand-to-hand combat.”
The mage's eyes burned.
“Impossible.”
“It is true. He died a warrior’s death.”
