Sadly most of my rounds had gone centre mass, ripping the outer material of the vest to shreds, and only one of them had found his flesh. I’d no idea where, and didn’t waste time checking. I went for a headshot, but he ducked and lurched aside. In desperation he unloaded his weapon blindly, three shots on semi-automatic that deterred me from following too closely.
In the next instant he was through the door again, and to follow him would be stepping into his sights.
I leapt past the open portal, slapped my shoulders against the wall and crabbed away down the corridor.
‘You!’ Viskhan screamed after me. He was as much struck by disbelief at my sudden appearance as stung by my bullets. ‘Come out! I will kill you!’
‘Why don’t you come back inside?’ I taunted, but continued to move away, my MAC-10 up and ready for the instant he showed his face.
In response he snuck his gun around the doorjamb and fired. His bullets didn’t trouble me, too far to my left and too high. I peppered the door frame with a short burst of bullets and he retracted his gun. ‘Bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I swear I’m going to kill you!’
‘I’m only sorry I didn’t stamp on your fuckin’ throat the first time I knocked you on your arse,’ I hollered back. ‘Trust me, I won’t show pity next time.’
‘Next time will be very soon, my friend.’
‘Bet on it.’
Before he could throw another angry retort, I backed through a door into what amounted to a floating man cave. The requisite pool table took centre stage among all the other boys’ toys. Glass doors opened on to the heli-deck. They swished open and admitted two armed figures. Initially they didn’t spot me in the subdued gloom at the far end of the room, and aimed their weapons outward. But the instant I fired it got their attention: or at least the attention of one of them, because the other was too busy crashing to the floor. I knew not who I’d killed, and didn’t care. And I was set on killing the second man. Sadly my MAC-10 ran dry, and I’d no time to reload.
I hurtled forwards, throwing down the machine pistol and snapping my hand round to my lower back, groping for the Glock. Bullets traced a halo inches around me.
Shit!
When I ran full pelt into Viskhan, the Glock must have fallen out of my waistband!
I still had a knife, but you know the old adage about knives and gunfights. Instead I snatched up a pool ball and hurled it at the gunman. It didn’t strike him, but it made him cower to avoid the rebound. There was some kind of stool, a silver metal pedestal topped by a white leather cushion. I grabbed and hurled it at the same time, throwing it more as a distraction than anything, hoping to entangle his legs and spoil the gunman’s aim as he righted himself. The stool was lighter than expected, or my strength more desperate. The cushioned end flipped and sent the metal base into his torso. I was only a second behind it so it hadn’t even begun to fall away when I crashed into it, the cushion against my abdomen. It worked as a brace between us, me forcing him against the wall, him trying to shoot me. But I’d also got a hand on its barrel and forced his gun aside. The barrel was hot, growing searing as he unleashed a storm of bullets among the rich man’s playthings. Ignoring the blistering of my fingers, I pounded my other fist into his face twice. We continued jostling and the stool fell between us. I threw my shoulder into his chest and, as he bounced off the wall, I wrenched on the gun and pulled him off balance and rammed a headbutt into his face. He tripped over the stool and went down heavily on his front, with me now on top. Now the gun had been dealt with it was the right time for the knife. I yanked it out of its pouch and plunged the combat blade repeatedly into the back of his neck. The man shuddered beneath me; his blood was hot on my hand. He was no longer a threat, but I stabbed him again for good measure, wishing it were Mikhail Viskhan I was kneeling astride.
Viskhan’s life could be measured in minutes, I swore, but before I could take the fight back to him I still had to stop that HMG before the SEALs blasted us all out of the water. I grabbed the dead man’s gun and emerged back into sunlight on the heli-deck.
Most of the bombardment of the beach had come to a halt as those on the yacht realised the Nephilim had been stormed. Mortars stood abandoned on the deck below while Viskhan’s people searched for us, wielding weapons befitting close-quarters combat. I’d no idea of where Rink had got to, but he was still alive if the sound of battle towards the front was anything to go by. I heard the chatter of his MAC-10 and corresponding retorts from handguns and rifles. To aft the shooting had fallen silent, but for one. The heavy machine gun was still active, crystallising my intentions. Using the helicopter as cover, I moved on its position.
A quick scan of the coastline showed pockets of destruction. Smoke hung in clouds over the churned sand and splintered or toppled palm trees. Fires raged beyond, where I guessed the estate’s buildings had taken hits. The gunner on the aft deck below continued to rain projectiles towards land, but it was largely a gesture, because I couldn’t spot a living soul. None of Viskhan’s landing party were in sight, having moved inland to storm the presidential retreat: I wondered how that was going, because there was no gunfire apparent from their end now. The heavy machine-gunner was shooting for shooting’s sake, enjoying his job too much for my liking and encouraging a fatal response. From the south, hugging the coastline, a helicopter was incoming and it would only be minutes until it arrived. If the trigger-happy gunner decided to switch his attention on that chopper the consequences for us all would be dire.
I briefly checked over the assault rifle I’d appropriated. It was a semi-automatic civilian AR-15 – infamously tagged the ‘mass shooter’s weapon of choice’ because, cloaked by the Second Amendment, it was easily available in the US. Supposedly a restricted modern sporting rifle, it was still a killing machine. And I was happy to put it to good use.
41
While Hunter brought chaos to the uppermost deck, Rink hadn’t been topping up his tan on the sun deck. He had paid back some of the hell the Nephilim’s crew had rained down on Mar-a-Lago. In doing so he’d drawn much of the fire away from Hunter, his plan all along so his friend could stop the HMG, but had placed himself in an untenable position. He was surrounded, with no clear escape route and his options for survival dwindling.
He was fighting a battle on three fronts and all dimensions. Those on the fore and lower starboard decks could only pin him down, but sporadically he had to contend with a shooter from above, near the bridge. Minutes ago he’d listened to Hunter wrecking the controls, then engaging in skirmishes as he progressed through the yacht, but it was apparent he hadn’t killed everyone up there. Some dude with a handgun occasionally crept out of cover to try and shoot him from above, and he was the most troubling enemy to contend with. Rink couldn’t retreat through the cabin; there were shooters within the yacht, and they were being organised into a three-pronged assault. They were seconds from swarming along both decks and through the cabin, and he had no chance of ascending to the lower deck without being cut to pieces by those below. His only way out was up the same ladder Hunter used to gain the upper deck, but not while the gunman waited for him to show his face. But it was better that he faced one gun rather than many… or it wasn’t.
Behind him the orders had curtailed, and that meant only one thing: the assault on his position was underway. Time, he thought, to move!
Going up the steps was tantamount to suicide. So was going down, and if he chose to skirt round one of the decks he’d meet the forces coming those ways and then get pinned by a pincer move. There was no safe passage through the cabin. He wasn’t afraid of death, but wasn’t keen on meeting it just yet. So he took the only thing left to him: he charged for starboard, rattling off bullets to deter anyone coming around the corner at him, and then cast the MAC-10 aside to free his hands.
He vaulted over the rail, arcing out in a swan dive for the sea. Around him he could feel the sonic cracks as bullets whizzed by, experienced blazing heat across his shoulders and right calf muscle. Then he
plunged head first into the water. His dive took him deep, and bullets trailing streaks of bubbles zipped and darted around him. He was hit a third time, not with killing force but enough to send a flash of agony the length of his spine. Air leaked between his clamped jaws, but he held on to most of it in his lungs while kicking like a frog and pulling at the water to get deeper. More bullets ploughed after him, but most of their velocity was slowed by the water pressure. Those that hit him had less force than a thrown pebble. He tucked in the water, righted himself by observing the rising bubbles around him and peered up through an indigo twilight. Way above he spotted concentric circles of froth marking where more bullets were sent into the deep after him. Up there gunmen shot furiously but blindly, in the hope of finishing him off. They were wasting ammunition.
Blood clouded the water around him, and no doubt some of it had already formed a discolouration of the sea. Let them think he was mortally wounded. He knew he wasn’t, because he was still functioning. The brine stung his wounds but he could ignore the discomfort in the knowledge that he’d taken glancing nicks rather than being holed through. Worse than the itchiness across his shoulder and lower leg, the pressure in his chest was building as his need for oxygen kicked in. But he didn’t claw for the surface. First he felt where he’d taken the third hit. His lower back was sore, but he’d been saved a severed spine by the suppressed pistol he’d earlier tucked in his belt. He found where the bullet had struck the grip, indenting it instead of his vertebra. He left the gun in situ, checked for his KA-BAR. Good, he still had the tools of his trade, because his job was not yet done.
His wild dive into the ocean wasn’t about escaping but expanding his options for helping Hunter to kill Viskhan. Anyone of right mind would swim a safe distance from the yacht before surfacing, so Rink ignored good sense. Through the murk he spotted the hull of the Nephilim and he curved towards it. His fingers found its slickness, and he used it to direct him aft as he fought to rise to the surface and gasp for air. It was too soon to come up; somebody would still be watching for him, and he had to make them believe he’d been killed and had sunk to the ocean floor. Overhead he spotted another shape. It was the speedboat they’d arrived in earlier. It bobbed adrift, but very close to the Nephilim’s hull. He pulled for the speedboat, got it between him and any observers on deck and then gratefully sucked in lungfuls of air. Taking a peek around or above the boat was out of the question, so he listened. Those who’d laid down a blizzard of lead where he’d dived into the sea were still on the decks, all talking and shouting excitedly, so he waited long enough for them to begin filtering away, chasing other imagined enemies, but also going to join the fight against Hunter.
He ducked beneath the speedboat and surfaced again just high enough to clear his nostrils and peered up at the sweeping hull of the Nephilim. He was yards away from the buoy line he’d climbed the first time, but he wouldn’t take a chance on it now. Keeping close to the yacht, hidden from above by the curve of its hull, he swam for the rear and the tender dock. Again he submerged to come up within the shelter of the open-ended dock where a skiff was moored on a bracket extending over the water from the dock. He stayed between the bodies of both boats so there was less chance of being spotted, timing his exit from the water with the braying of the HMG on the next deck up.
He strong-armed himself up, braced on both palms and hoisting his hips and bent knees upward like a gymnast taking to a pommel horse. As his soles found the deck he pushed up and came to his feet, then immediately swept beneath the overhanging upper deck, out of view of the gunner up there. Steps allowed access up, or he could enter a corridor to the aft staterooms. He decided neither were suitable and instead went to port and took a quick glance along the deck. Most of the terrorists had abandoned their posts when they’d been summoned to kill him. Mortars were lined up along the deck, but sans operators. He spotted an assault rifle on which was mounted an M203 grenade launcher propped against a box of 40 mm grenades. A grim smile played across his lips.
Time to level the playing field.
Drawing the silenced pistol, he snuck along the deck. Was within spitting distance of the grenade launcher when a familiar figure rounded the corner ahead. Rink snapped up the pistol, fired thrice in rapid succession. His aim was good, but the suppressor and the intervening fifty or so yards played havoc with the gun’s accuracy and Dan StJohn was lucky to survive. He hollered the alert, summoning assistance even as he brought up his own weapon and returned fire. Rink ducked and dived, plastered his body into a recessed doorway and came out of the brief encounter unscathed. As others joined him, StJohn thrust them ahead of him and two reckless fools began a suicide run at Rink, shooting as they advanced.
Disregarding the pistol and the bullets chewing the deck, walls and rail all around him, Rink lunged for the grenade launcher. He toppled the ammunition box towards him and grenades spilled around his feet as he again pushed into the recess. It took him less than three seconds to chamber a grenade and bring the gun up. His two would-be killers were already retreating, not bothering to shoot as they fled for their lives. The grenade Rink fired struck the lattermost and obliterated him. The other man was thrown ten feet in the air as he somersaulted out to sea.
Forward of where they died, StJohn ordered another two terrorists to get Rink, and when they cowered back around the corner it saved their lives as a second grenade scuffed the deck, bounced a few feet and then struck the prow. The detonation still threw them down, as it did StJohn, but they were spared the instantaneous obliteration suffered by the first man to be struck. Shedding seawater, Rink charged down the deck even as he racked in a third grenade, the last he’d managed to snap up. It was time to finish what he’d begun that time at the Miami-Dade County Seaport with StJohn.
42
For the briefest of seconds I feared that the incoming SEAL team had launched a salvo of rockets at the Nephilim, but part of my mind told me I was wrong. The two detonations, terrifically deafening so close by, weren’t the result of rockets, but by less destructive armament. Grenades was my best guess, fired from one of the terrorist’s own guns but striking on the lower deck instead of the beach. If pushed to bet on who was behind the explosions my money was on one man. I grinned in feral joy: trust Rink to turn things noisier.
The fact that an enemy had gotten his hands on a grenade launcher wasn’t lost on the duo working the HMG. It fell silent as they checked they weren’t next to be blown to smithereens. Their attention was directed front of ship, from where smoke plumed for the heavens. The gunner’s mate jogged away, moving for an angle where he could see over the rail, to check out the lower deck. Above him, and over his left shoulder, I went undetected. I centred the AR-15’s sights between his shoulders and let rip a three-rounds volley. Somebody once described that being shot by a handgun was akin to being stabbed with a thimble, while being shot by an AR-15 was more like being perforated by soda cans. The bullets – at such close range – put holes in his torso that I could’ve shoved a fist through.
I immediately turned on the machine-gunner.
But he had heard the retorts of my rifle, saw his pal cut to ribbons and began to target the HMG on me. The gun swung fluidly on its gimbal, but he wasn’t as nimble as he shuffled around after it. Before he’d any hope of getting a bead on me, I moved quickly to the right, rushing past the cockpit of the chopper, making it even more difficult to follow me, and then came to a straddling halt. I prompted him to fire and his bullets ripped through Viskhan’s getaway helicopter, feet away from me. My AR-15 blatted out three rounds with each caress of the trigger. The first three missed the gunner but forced him to release the gun and scramble for his life. Taking better aim, I sent another grouping of three shots into him and a chunk of bloody meat was ejected across the brass-littered deck. He wasn’t dead, but he was dying. He still had the determination to pull out a sidearm and swing it up at me, but he’d barely any strength, and less clarity of vision. His bullets troubled the seagulls flapping noisily in
the sky but came nowhere near me. It was almost too easy when I rested into the stock, sighted on him and put three rounds in his sternum. As he sprawled dead on the deck a third grenade exploded at the prow, and the shockwave that travelled the length of the boat could be felt through my soles. That Rink.
The heaviest weapons had been taken out of commission, the attack on the land redirected, and now the Nephilim was taking hits: hopefully it was enough to deter an immediate and devastating response from the SEALs, or an incoming rocket from a fighter plane. After a studious check of my surroundings – no enemy in sight – I looked again for the incoming chopper. It hove into view a few hundred yards off port, standing between the yacht and the mainland. It was a huge twin-prop Chinook CH-47D troop transporter, but beyond it, skimming over the bombarded presidential retreat, were two sleeker craft, Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helos. The Apaches had initially secured the battleground but were now coming to offer supporting fire to the Chinook. The monstrous twin-prop descended, and I could figure out why. SEAL frogmen didn’t rappel from the chopper; they weren’t required when the tailgate could be lowered to spit out an RIB full of steely-eyed Special Forces guys who meant to board the Nephilim and quell all opposition. Briefly I wondered if Walter’s warning had fallen on deaf ears, but then the fact there were friendlies on the yacht was hard to miss, no less the evidence of my taking out the HMG which had given them the opening to storm the boat.
In another minute some of the most capable warriors on Earth would swarm aboard, and I didn’t want to be confused as a terrorist. But neither did I lay down my weapons and lace my hands on my head. Rink was still fighting for his life, and there were still some specific people I wished to meet in person. I sprinted around the destroyed chopper for the starboard side, and took up the hunt for Mikhail Viskhan.
Marked for Death Page 26
