WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  But there were so many, racing into the camp from the forest beyond, the dead always replaced by more, that Navarone and Xie’s escape seemed impossible. But Navarone had seen the last of the children pass through the gates, continuing on towards the safety of the western forest beyond; and he knew that it had been worth it.

  The cold rain increased in its intensity, falling hard on Navarone as he heard Xie’s call and he turned and ran again towards the gates – so close now, so agonizingly close.

  He sped past Xie, knelt and firing from the shoulder, but then he heard a guttural cry, a muffled scream.

  He turned, saw that Xie was hit, rolling on his back in a deep puddle of rainwater and blood, and stopped in his tracks.

  The decision was made in an instant by his subconscious, no time to think things through logically; he merely reacted the way he had been trained, the way he had been brought up.

  You never left a man behind.

  Navarone pulled a fragmentation grenade from his combat vest and hurled it through the air, dodging the bullets which seemed to come at him in slow motion, time distorted now by the adrenalin which surged through him.

  The grenade hit and exploded, and Navarone could see body parts flying through the wet air even as he threw another, and another.

  The explosions rocked him as he raced forward, but he no longer noticed; all he could see was Xie, bleeding on the wet ground.

  And then he was there beside him, hauling the injured man up and across his shoulders, his rifle too. With an M4 in each hand, he fired back at the soldiers through the flames; his aim useless now with two guns, hoping only to pin them down, keep them busy while he escaped.

  He turned and ran, legs pumping harder than they ever had before, zigzagging through the camp to avoid the enemy fire which followed him. He felt the passage of hot air all around him as bullets whizzed past, missing him by inches, perhaps even less.

  He could see the gate right in front of him, still open after the children had passed through; he heard bullets ricocheting off the metal, splashing into the puddles around him.

  And then he was through, dropping a rifle to swing the gate shut behind him, even more rounds hitting it as it closed.

  It was only then – above the noise of the storm, the gunfire, his own labored breathing – that he sensed it.

  It was something falling from the sky.

  ‘MOP One has been released,’ Lt. Colonel Gleason reported matter-of-factly.

  ‘Roger that,’ Major Harris confirmed, ‘and we’re away.’

  The speed of the giant flying wing increased immediately as the first B2 pulled away from the target area, leaving it open for the second bomber to follow.

  Gleason tracked the progress of the Massive Ordinance Penetrator on his readouts as it dropped through the sky from 40,000 feet.

  Thirty thousand, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, five . . .

  The B2 Spirit stealth bomber and its crew were already over ten miles away when the weapon finally reached the earth and hit its target.

  And Gleason didn’t need his readout to tell him that whatever the 2.4 ton high-explosive warhead had hit would have ceased to exist – completely.

  The second MOP launched just behind the first would merely be the icing on the cake.

  4

  Cole could see the compound from a thousand feet as his chair sailed slowly down to earth.

  The view below him was exactly like the satellite photographs he’d been shown back at the CIA safe house, and the more up-to-date aerial surveillance footage from the reconnaissance drones which had been flown over the city.

  Cole directed the parachute, trimming it slightly to come around and approach the compound from the rear. He could see that it was a fairly large compound, one main residential building and two smaller subsidiary blocks all surrounded by a high cement wall, all sandwiched away amidst hundreds of other buildings in a quiet area of the city.

  It reminded Cole of the Waziristan Haveli, the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden had been found ten years after the massacre of 9/11. It had been SEAL Team Six which had taken the compound and killed bin Laden; but this was of no comfort to Cole, and he knew he was crazy for taking on such a place alone.

  As he looked down at the compound, he realized that if he could see it, then whoever was there would also be able to see him.

  But what other choice did he have?

  If there was any chance at all that the suicide bombers were still there, then any risk was acceptable.

  He realized that his ejection from the aircraft would have been reported, that the authorities would be tracking his descent, that armed teams would be dispersed immediately to his landing point, and welcomed the fact.

  Once he had landed, the element of surprise would already be gone and it didn’t matter who told who else; by then it would be too late to make any difference, and Cole would take any help he could get.

  He saw the compound draw closer and could see nobody moving around. The courtyard was empty.

  Did that mean the bombers had already left?

  He prayed that he was wrong, that they were still there, that he still had a chance.

  And then he was there, right above the rooftops, and he flared the chute, which filled with air and served to brake his progress even further, and then he felt the rough impact as the chair hit the dusty concrete floor of the compound’s central courtyard.

  Cole was up, unbuckled and out of the chair in an instant, ripping off his helmet and flight mask and drawing his concealed Heckler and Koch UPS pistol; scanning the courtyard, the windows, the rooftops for any sign of activity.

  But there was none; none whatsoever.

  And all of a sudden, Cole realized with a tightness in his stomach that he might already be too late.

  Once Cole had cleared the courtyard, he began moving quickly from building to building. There was nobody in the first one, just an empty dormitory block, and Cole found nothing at the larger residential building either. If anybody had ever lived here, then they were long gone, the place wiped clean.

  There was just one building left, and as Cole peered through the windows he realized it was a laboratory complex and his pulse quickened.

  Could they still be here, could they be in there, being prepared with the bioweapon, injected before their suicidal attack on America?

  Pistol held out in front of him, he pried open the door and crept inside.

  The control of his heart rate was automatic, his subconscious keeping it low so that he could perform at the high level he knew might be necessary at any second.

  He edged through the bare concrete corridors, seeing room after empty room. There was still the paraphernalia of a scientific presence here, but it was clear that this building too had been abandoned.

  Cole sighed wearily; he was too late.

  He would have to contact Washington and let them know. Airports would have to be closed and HAZMAT teams would have to be brought in all across America. Panic would ensue even before the bombers reached their targets.

  A noise caught Cole’s attention then and his head snapped round.

  It was the sound of coughing, coming from somewhere nearby, somewhere . . . below?

  Cole looked around frantically, checking doors for a basement staircase, the floors for trapdoors, even the walls for hidden panels.

  And then he found it – a secret staircase hidden behind a laboratory counter in one of the side rooms. Opening the door carefully – so very, very carefully – Cole slipped through it onto the descending stairs, his pistol leading the way as if it was an extension of his arm.

  Before long he was at the bottom of the stairs, at another door. The cough came again, from the other side. He wished that he had an infrared scanner, or else a fiber optic camera that he could slip under the door to check what lay beyond, but he had nothing. He would just have to rely on his instincts and his training.

  And yes, he decided as he kicked at t
he door, blasting it open and racing through to confront whatever was on the other side, he was also going to have to rely on a little bit of luck.

  5

  Amir al-Hazmi – for one of the few times in his life – was taken completely by surprise.

  The blessed martyrs had all received their injections and now they were all gone; he had escorted them to the various airports himself, making sure they boarded their flights before returning to the compound to monitor their progress.

  With the doctors, scientists and laboratory assistants all dead – killed by al-Hazmi’s priceless janbiya, as he couldn’t take the risk that any of them might talk – he was now alone here for the first time in weeks.

  He had been monitoring the various airlines as they unwittingly carried the martyrs to their destinations – New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, Dallas, New Orleans, these and a dozen more – as well as checking the current weather conditions in those cities, making sure that the maximum amount of damage would be inflicted.

  The doctors had dosed the martyrs in exactly the same way; the spores would be released twelve hours from now, giving them enough time to land, get through customs and make their way to the designated release points – the locations chosen to have the greatest affect and infect the largest possible number of people.

  What al-Hazmi’s concentration meant, however, was that he hadn’t been checking the security monitors as often as he should have been. He had become complacent – the martyrs had been injected and were on their way, what was there to worry about anymore?

  The Lion had warned him to be careful; al-Hazmi knew that Quraishi, his beloved leader, was now a wanted man. It was not unexpected, but it was certainly sooner than planned. However, al-Hazmi hadn’t let the issue bother him unduly; he was confident that the compound was still undiscovered. After all, how would anyone know about it? Only he and The Lion knew where it was – everyone else had been killed, or else were on their way to destroy the Great Satan with the plague that coursed through their blood.

  And so al-Hazmi had been unforgivably complacent, which meant that he had missed the entry to the compound of this man – this man who was here, now, bursting through the door and aiming a gun –

  Al-Hazmi reacted before he even fully realized what was happening, snapping round in his chair at the noise and releasing the janbiya he had been playing with as he sat monitoring the computers.

  He watched it fly through the air with a savage grin.

  Cole had never seen a man move so fast in his entire life.

  He had burst through the door and seen the man sitting at a bank of computers, his back to Cole; and in the next moment, no more than the blink of an eye, the man had turned and thrown something.

  Cole felt a piercing pain shoot through his wrist before he even realized what had happened; but then he turned to look at his arm and saw that his hand no longer held the gun, and the sharp blade of an Arabic dagger was sticking through his forearm, buried up to the hilt, its bloody blade coming right out the other side.

  Cole realized it must be Amir al-Hazmi, the Hammer of the Infidel and the feared knife-master of the terrorist underworld. He was sorry to find out that the rumors about the man’s skill with a blade seemed to be true.

  Eyes wide, Cole watched – half in shock – as the man leapt from the chair, withdrawing a second janbiya from his robes as he charged forward.

  Cole barely managed to avoid the attack, his skewered right arm hanging uselessly by his side as he dodged first one way and then – as al-Hazmi swiped at him again – the other, the razor sharp blade missing him by quarters of an inch both times.

  Instinctively Cole lashed out with his booted foot, connecting with al-Hazmi’s thigh, forcing him back while he tried to regain his own composure. But al-Hazmi gave him no time at all, recovering from the kick and advancing forward once more, swinging his dagger in controlled arcs towards Cole’s face and body.

  Al-Hazmi rushed in, eager to finish him off, but Cole intercepted the knife arm with his left forearm, grasping hold of the wrist with his hand and snapping his head forward into al-Hazmi’s surprised face.

  The man’s nose broke with the impact and – forgetting it was injured, the knife still impaled through it – Cole rammed the heel of his right palm up underneath al-Hazmi’s chin.

  The blow might have broken the neck of a lesser man, but the thickly-muscled al-Hazmi shook it off and – in one incredibly smooth, powerful action – pulled another dagger from his robe with his free hand and swiped it across Cole’s midriff.

  Cole arched his back just in time, the blade slicing through his flight suit and the skin of his abdomen but failing to penetrate further. But the pain laced right through him and his vision went momentarily blank; when it cleared, he saw the second blade coming back towards him, aimed for his neck.

  Unable to block the arm, Cole released his grip on al-Hazmi and leapt backwards, the blade swiping through the air where his neck had been just moments before.

  Distance between them now, the two men circled each other warily; but Cole was all too aware that he was badly injured and unarmed whereas the man he faced had two daggers, and the skill to use them.

  The savage grin played again across al-Hazmi’s face. Whoever this enemy was, he was good; and it had been a long time since al-Hazmi had faced anyone who could pose any sort of threat.

  He was disappointed to have lost his favorite janbiya, which was still lodged in the man’s arm, but knew the two he still had would do the job just as well.

  As they circled each other, al-Hazmi kept the blades moving, cutting through the air in a pattern of intricate moves which served to hypnotize his prey. He knew – try as they might – that his victims couldn’t help but look at the blades as they described their figure-eights, confusing them, distracting them, so that when the killer blow came – as it always did – they didn’t stand a chance.

  Cole knew what al-Hazmi was doing, and refused to be drawn in.

  The movement of the blades was designed to confuse him, to mask the real attack; and so Cole stared right through them, to a point at the top of al-Hazmi’s chest, below the neck.

  He knew that any movement would originate in that region, and watched it like a hawk. Cole also avoided looking at the eyes, as they too could deceive; but the body couldn’t lie, and Cole watched through the blur of the spinning blades as al-Hazmi’s body told him everything.

  The attack came at the exact moment Cole predicted – seemingly out of the blue, but preceded by a tiny tell-tale preparatory movement – and as the blades arced through towards his face and neck, one after the other, Cole dropped to one knee, hands down for support and launched a kick at al-Hazmi’s groin.

  The man cried out in pain but Cole didn’t stop to assess his handiwork; instead, he transferred his weight onto the leg which had just kicked, pivoted, and swept the hardened shin of his other leg into al-Hazmi’s knee, destroying the soft tissue around the joint and causing the man to drop like a stone.

  Cole was on top of him in an instant, kneeling with one leg on al-Hazmi’s right arm while his own right hand pinned the killer’s left wrist to the floor.

  Cole unleashed blow after blow onto al-Hazmi’s face with his free left fist; with his own heart rate elevated so high, and the man underneath him bucking for all he was worth, Cole was unable to target the vital points which would have ended the confrontation immediately, but his strikes were having an effect all the same – Al-Hazmi’s face was turning black and blue from Cole’s punches.

  But still the man clung to consciousness, and spat a wad of blood right into Cole’s eyes. Momentarily blinded, Cole’s position was weakened and al-Hazmi used the opportunity, raising a knee up viciously into Cole’s groin and rolling him over in a reversal of position.

  Cole grimaced as al-Hazmi mounted on top of him, his janbiya daggers shooting down towards him. Cole managed to grip the wrists with his hands but gravity was
on al-Hazmi’s side and Cole watched with growing fear as the blades edged closer and closer towards his throat.

  Yes, al-Hazmi thought as his blades pushed closer, the feeling inside him near orgasmic in its intensity as he visualized cutting the man’s head off his shoulders completely. Yes!

  The man beneath him was strong, but al-Hazmi knew that he was stronger. How many men had he killed over the years with these weapons? It was too many to count, and this intruder would be just one more.

  The blades came closer, closer; so close now to the man’s white skin, skin that would soon leak blood everywhere.

  Yes!

  Cole could feel his strength waning, knew that al-Hazmi was close to ending things forever.

  But then all hope of finding the bombers would be gone forever too, and America would fall.

  No, Cole told himself as the first blade touched his throat, I can’t let that happen.

  And then Cole pushed up with his right hand and let go, head slipping to the side; in the next moment, al-Hazmi’s janbiya came scything down, uncontrolled.

  Too high, it sliced the top of Cole’s ear clean off; but so engaged in the moment was he that he didn’t even notice.

  Instead, in the very same breath, Cole took his now free right arm – al-Hazmi’s own dagger still embedded in it – and brought it crashing down on top of the man’s head.

  Al-Hazmi felt the blade of his own knife pierce the roof of his skull, could not believe that his own weapon had been used against him, and – just before the long blade plunged through his brain and finished everything – he marveled at the sacrifice his opponent had made, understanding that the pain the man must have experienced as he used his own damaged arm as a weapon must have been enormous.

  And then al-Hazmi was dead, the irony of his own priceless, beloved janbiya having been used against him the last thought he ever had.