Marked for Death
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
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Thanks
Copyright
Marked for Death
Matt Hilton
This one is for Raymond William Hilton.
I miss your laughter, my little brother.
Prologue
Smoke, fire and corpses.
That was his world when his senses coalesced out of the fog of incomprehension. For minutes gone – or for an eternity, he wasn’t sure – he’d floated outside his corporeal body, his mind tumbling slowly through a void of nothingness. He could see, taste, touch and smell nothing. In that place he was at peace. It’s said that when death comes, the final sense to leave us is hearing. In that abyss there was sound, though it came from such distance that it barely scratched at the edge of his hearing.
As he tumbled through the colourless void he grew aware that he was straining to deny those sounds, because through acknowledging them it meant he still clung to life. He didn’t want to hear. He wanted only to wallow in peace and leave everything behind… the fear, the agony.
But the more he tried to ignore the sounds, the more insistent they became.
And as they grew louder, panic swelled.
What was he thinking? He didn’t want to die!
Now he clawed against the alternative, and his own voice rose to join the audible chaos surging over him. He screamed, a ragged, throaty roar of denial that snapped his ethereal mind into the present, and he was reeled in at a shocking velocity. Mind and body collided with the force of an exploding star, a phosphorescent white light splitting apart the void, and through the rents in its insubstantial fabric poured reality.
Choking smoke. Searing flames. Charred and bloody corpses.
He could taste his own blood, and smell the acrid tang of noxious fumes. But they were distractions compared to the crushing weight on his chest and legs. A huge slab of jagged concrete bore into him, his frail body the only thing denying its inexorable contest with gravity. He was on the verge of bursting, of collapsing under the immense weight, as had the building currently under bombardment by US missiles.
Even as he grew aware of his predicament, memory flooded in.
He had been standing alongside another two private military contractors, supposedly in Afghanistan to assist with the peace-keeping forces, but really using the opportunities that a nation in turmoil offered to those willing to step outside laws and morals. He’d partnered with the two Chechen mercenaries to work security while they brokered a deal with the Taliban. It was a deal that would open routes through Chechnya to the Western world. The mercenaries would grow rich on the raw opiates on offer. The meeting within the Taliban stronghold – a compound of high walls and a cluster of concrete bunkers abandoned by the Soviets years ago – had been tense, but promised to grow fruitful… until hell rained down from above.
The only thing that had saved him from immediate evisceration was that the first missile to strike had targeted an adjacent building. The detonation had destroyed that building, and had hurled massive chunks of debris onto the one in which they met with the Afghans. Walls and parts of the roof collapsed on them even before they were aware of the concussive wave of sound and fury rolling over them. He had seen men picked up and thrown through the air, as if swatted by an invisible giant, their bodies pulverised by flying debris, even as he had been thrown down. Ears ringing, thoughts swirling, it took him moments to crawl up from the dirt and stand again. He was dazed, covered from head to foot in dust, but otherwise unhurt. Miraculously he had survived where so many others hadn’t. Through the choking cloud of debris a hole in the wall offered an escape, and he staggered towards it. Beyond it a curtain of fire raged, and he backed away from the furnace heat that washed over him, throwing his arms over his face.
He was retreating like that when the second missile struck and the remainder of the ceiling thundered down on him, forcing his sensations into that foggy void. His arms were still before his face, but their strength wasn’t what had spared him from being pulped. Other chunks of debris he’d fallen amongst helped prop up the crushing weight of the slab. Yet he was still trapped, and had no hope of dragging himself free. The slab promised to be his final marker.
Another missile struck towards the rear of the compound. The flash lit up the smoke that wreathed around him, and he felt the concussive force of the detonation almost instantaneously, the concrete on top of him thrumming like the skin of a drum, casting down grit and dust in his eyes. The corresponding boom compressed his eardrums. He screamed again… but it escaped his constricted chest as a plaintive wheeze.
‘Elbek!’ A voice responded, speaking in Russian. ‘Is that you? Where are you, Elbek?’
Elbek was one of his Chechen partners.
Elbek was dead.
He could see the man’s crushed face a few feet away, his body mashed under more fallen concrete. He could smell Elbek’s blood and his voided bowel.
‘It’s me!’ he croaked.
‘Where’s Elbek?’ The voice had switched to English, for his sake.
‘He’s gone… please… you have to help me.’
Rocks clattered, and a figure loomed alongside him, crawling on hands and knees. He peered into the face of the man that would decide his future. The Chechen’s face was streaked with dirt, and blood trickled down his cheek. His sharp eyes played over him, and then slipped away. He had been disregarded. The Chechen began to crawl away, to claw at rocks to help him stand.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave me here like this.’
He would die beneath the rubble, choked or burnt to death. Should he survive he faced execution by the Taliban – for in their minds, who else could have guided the US missiles to their stronghold – or capture and imprisonment by the US forces who would deem him a traitor and enemy combatant.
‘There’s nothing I can do for you,’ the Chechen rasped. ‘Except give you a swift death.’
The Chechen had returned to his side, this time standing over him with an assault rifle hanging down by his side.
‘No,’ he pleaded. ‘Please. I don’t want to die like this.’
‘I don’t see any other way for you.’
‘I’m trapped. Yes. But you can get me free.’
‘What’s in it for me? I’ve wasted enough time here as it is.’ The Chechen wasn’t only talking about his need to flee before the US troops arrived to sweep the compound of survivors. He was angered that his deal with the Taliban, and the riches it promised him, was at an end. There was little to profit him in dragging another mercenary from the wreckage.
He strained against the rubble. It sank a fraction lower. ‘Ask anything of me, and I’ll do it.’
‘I need to go.’ The Chechen snorted
and turned aside, not even bothering with delivering a mercy killing.
‘Wait!’ If he could, he would have lifted beseeching hands to the Chechen. ‘Help me. Save my life. Do that and I swear to you I’ll do the same for you a thousand times. Please, get me out of here, and I’ll do anything you want. Anything! I’ll fight for you. Even if it means dying for you!’
He didn’t know it then, but his pledge would be tested many times in the coming years, and through every trial he would stay true to his word. Even when asked to do the worst things imaginable.
1
Splinters of glass cascaded across the sidewalk, a bed of needles on which the squint-eyed thug went to sleep. Seconds ago he’d been jumping around, as hyper as a speed addict, spitting froth from the corners of his mouth in his agitation, until I’d delivered the sleeping pill by way of a straight right to his jaw.
I hadn’t planned on sending him through the window, but the subsequent explosion of glass, the slap of his body on the pavement, bought me a few seconds while his pals blinked in astonishment at his downfall. By the time their attention turned back to me, I was on the offensive. I upended a table, scattering food and condiments, and kicked it into the thighs of the two men nearest me. While they wasted time trying to clear the obstruction, I vaulted it and kicked the first of them over onto his back. While he was down I stamped on his groin. He jack-knifed at the waist, woofing in agony, and met my knee with his face. He sprawled out flat again.
The third guy should have hit me while I was still side-on to him, but he made the mistake of going for a two-hands grab, intending to yank me off his downed pal. He caught the collar of my jacket, began hauling, but that worked in my favour: I pivoted half-circle and rammed the tip of my left elbow into his liver. He lost all control of his grip, and likely his bowels, as his response was to squat and shudder out a deep groan. Reversing my pivot, I again employed an elbow, and this time his fat head made a perfect target. He crashed against the upturned table, his weight thrusting it back a few feet before he flattened out.
The violence had been shocking and sudden, and to the observers out on the sidewalks I might have looked as much like the instigator as I did the perpetrator of the brutal exchange, but I’d only gone there to enjoy a quiet lunch. I should have known better; I tend to attract trouble. If there’s an idiot in the room they always gravitate towards me, and sadly I’m not the type to suffer fools.
And the trio of punks lying around me in varying degrees of messed-up had been drunken fools.
They’d come off the beach overheated, but instead of lining their stomachs with food and maybe taking a soft drink they’d elected for pitchers of beer. Too much hot sun plus too much cold beer: not a good combination. The alcohol made them boisterous, rude and belligerent. Squint-eye didn’t understand that four-letter words were best kept between his own ignorant company, and he had no right to complain when asked by the manager to keep it down around the lunchtime diners. His way of dealing with the request was to get louder, and begin throwing his weight around, challenging anyone who thought himself man enough to shut him up. I told him to shut it.
Squint-eye – encouraged by his equally stupid friends – set his chin, then strolled over to my table with his fists clenched.
‘You goin’ to make me shut it, old man?’ he demanded, one eye watering, the other pinched almost shut. Dried spittle formed scummy patches at the corners of his mouth. More spit was ejected when he wiggled his fingers and beckoned me to try it. ‘C’mon, asshole, you want to have a go?’
‘Let’s take this out in the parking lot,’ I said as I stood.
‘Why not do things right here?’ To punctuate his point, he snatched up a ketchup bottle from my table and swung for my head. Before the bottle was halfway through its arc, my fist impacted his chin and things kicked off.
It’s one thing standing against bullies, but my problem was I didn’t have much balance when dealing with them: once tripped, my switch was prone to overkill. Surrounded by the recumbent trio, I took abashed glances around, observing the shocked expressions of my fellow diners. I felt bad that I’d helped ruin their day out.
A family of three sat at the nearest table, shocked into immobility, loaded forks still raised. I could see the partly masticated remains of a cheeseburger in the wide mouth of a sturdy, ginger-haired kid. His eyes were huge and glossy with excitement.
‘Sorry your boy had to witness that,’ I said to the kid’s parents.
The father, the progenitor of his son’s red hair and freckles, glimpsed at the kid, then shook his head, as if an apology was unnecessary. ‘Can’t get him off those online shoot-’em-up games, I’m betting he’s seen much worse.’
The mother, a frumpy blonde, and obviously the parent that’d determined the kid’s stocky figure, moistened her lips as she stared up at me. ‘They asked for what they got, mister,’ she announced.
Other diners were in agreement, some of them even offering a short round of applause. One old guy sitting close enough to spit on the thug I’d elbowed cackled softly in laughter. He used an immaculately white sneaker to prod the downed man. He spoke directly to him. ‘If you’re intent on throwing your weight around, you should expect a hard landing now and again.’
His words of wisdom rang as a personal warning to me. I looked for the manager, held up my hands in apology. ‘I’m sorry about the trouble; I only planned on getting them outside and on their way. Things rapidly got out of hand, though.’
‘This wasn’t on you, Joe,’ the manager said, his expression one of sombre reflection. I’d been visiting his beachside diner for years, and was on first name terms with Grant. ‘That punk would’ve smashed your head with that bottle if you hadn’t stopped him.’
‘I was more annoyed that he called me an old man.’ I smiled to show I was joking.
‘Yeah,’ said Grant, who was my senior by a couple of years, ‘he asked for it. I only wish I’d opened the window first.’
‘That wasn’t planned either,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll pay for the damages, Grant.’
He pointed down at Squint-eye, who was still dozing on the sidewalk. ‘He can pay for the damages.’ He checked out the overturned table, the spilled food and crockery. ‘The rest is salvageable.’
‘Maybe we should put them in the recovery position or something.’
‘Let’s drag ’em into the parking lot, let them sleep it off,’ Grant suggested. ‘It’s garbage collection day, maybe someone will do me a favour and throw them in the trash.’
He was jesting. Plus he had a duty of care, as did I. Between us we got the trio of young punks propped in the shade at the side of the diner, and slapped them into wakefulness. I didn’t hold a grudge. As long as they behaved – and shelled out ample reimbursement to Grant for the broken window – I’d allow our disagreement to end.
To be fair, when they did come to, they wore similar expressions of sombre reflection to Grant’s countenance earlier. They knew they’d been in the wrong, having had some sobriety knocked back into their foolish heads. Squint-eye paid up, and even offered me an apology and his hand. I didn’t believe for a second it was a trap to pull me into a headbutt, but call me cautious. I clapped him on the shoulder instead, directing him back to the beach.
As he had during previous visits to his diner, Grant again offered me a job, which I again declined. It had become a discussion point with us to a point where we sounded like a stuck record.
‘I’ve already got a job.’
‘You seem to have plenty downtime,’ Grant countered. ‘I sure could use you on the door over the summer break…’
‘I’d make a poor doorman,’ I said. ‘I can’t differentiate doors from windows.’
He shook his head at the lame joke.
‘Besides,’ I went on, ‘I enjoy eating here; it wouldn’t be the same if I worked here. I wouldn’t be able to relax.’
‘You never relax,’ he reminded me. ‘You should take up yoga or something, Joe, do some breathi
ng exercises, or you’re going to burn yourself out. You’re not as young as you used to be.’
I blinked at him in mock surprise. ‘I just knocked a guy through a window for suggesting I was old.’
‘I didn’t say you were old, just… well, not young either.’
‘And you think me working a door, bouncing groups of drunken reprobates, is going to be good for my health? Thanks for the out, Grant.’
He extended his hand. ‘The offer’s always open.’
I had no reservations about taking his hand, and I winked my appreciation.
‘Can I get you a fresh plate?’ Grant offered. My lunch was currently being mopped off the floor by one of his serving staff.
‘Lost my appetite,’ I admitted. I squinted at my wristwatch for effect. ‘Besides, it’s time I was getting on… before age really does catch up to me.’
‘Got a lot on?’ His tone was doubtful.
‘I’m a busy man,’ I said.
I was lying. I was between jobs and was growing antsy. On another day I might have made do with slapping some sense into Squint-eye and his pals, not beating on them as vigorously as I did. Boredom had a detrimental effect on me, and a worse one on the fools that snapped me out of laconic mode.
The truth was, I was mildly embarrassed. Despite the show of appreciation from the diners, I was sorry that I’d acted so violently, especially in view of children, and was uncomfortable about returning inside. I couldn’t eat while being eyed openly – or surreptitiously – by the other diners. I especially didn’t want to field their questions or misguided accolades, let alone reproof once the adrenaline spike faded and they began thinking more clearly about the kind of person in their midst. I said goodbye to Grant and strolled through Mexico Beach towards my beach house, seriously ready for a change of scenery.
2
I liked Mexico Beach and was loath to relocate, but it was beginning to look inevitable. During my downtime I enjoyed eating at Grant’s place, and at Toucan’s, or taking a cold beer at one of the other beachfront bars. I liked jogging up the beach towards Tyndall Air Force Base following the coast of Saint Andrew Sound. If I had a choice, my ideal would include mountains, forests and shimmering lakes, but this was Florida. Sitting quietly on the deck outside my beach house, watching pelicans skimming the cerulean waters of the Gulf, was as close to my idea of second best as I could imagine. But I was quickly becoming the serpent in this particular paradise. More than once trouble had followed me home, and extreme violence had been the outcome, and I knew that the residents would only tolerate me in their midst for so long before they began muttering behind my back and wishing I was gone: after that it’d be pitchforks and flaming torches. Grant’s continued offers of employment were a case in point; he liked me – for now – but he also feared me. My potential for sudden and extreme violence hadn’t engendered me an offer as a fry cook or front of house greeter. He offered the doorman’s job simply because I’d turn it down, and that subtle message reminded me of my value to him, and probably to the other residents and business people he regularly conversed with.
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