"Well, you don’t see that every day."
Morton was quicker to see the consequences. He replied dryly,
"See what."
Branton nodded.
"Yeah right. Nothing. Didn’t happen."
They went back to the front entrance and looked out, carefully scanning the sky for drones. There were a few but nothing close. Branton knew he had to get in touch with someone, get some air support, fighter jets maybe. He didn’t have a fucking clue how to go about that. It was not something that came up that often in the normal course of his duties. Basically never. They walked cautiously outside the hall, looking up. They got about five meters from the hall when they heard an odd whirring sound. They both turned left and then froze. Two of the drones, probably the same two that were attacking them earlier, were on the road, on the ground, just twenty meters away. They were about ten meters long. A dull grey color. Silent and deadly. And they were pointing straight at them. They weren't doing anything, just waiting. The silence was eerie. For a few seconds, neither of the men moved. Morton was stoic. He said to Branton,
"Never thought it would end like this."
Branton replied,
"It’s been an honor mate."
Morton said,
"Likewise."
Neither of them was the type to just give up. Branton whispered urgently,
"You go left, I'll go right. Ready."
Morton nodded. They were still holding their weapons. They both took a firm grip. Branton called out,
"Go."
They raised their weapons intending to open fire on the stationary drones as they both started lunging to the side. The two drones opened fire instantly. The drones each had a pair of 30 mm machine guns, with a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. Or ten per second. Four of them in total, from twenty meters. In the first half second, before they could move more than an inch, Branton and Morton were splattered into a thousand bloody pieces.
Eventually someone further up the chain of command managed to take control. Urgent orders were dispatched to the RAAF base in Sale. Five fighter jets, fully armed and loaded, were scrambled and directed towards Maffra. It didn’t take long for them to take out the remaining drones. There was more devastation in the town though as burning, exploding drones dropped onto houses below - and in a few cases when only partially destroyed went into self-destruct mode taking out whole residential blocks when they exploded of their own accord. Some of the drones seemed to be hiding on the ground. These too were quickly found and destroyed. There would be much talk and much analysis on why the drones ran amok. And how they got so smart and so deliberate. But none of the humans would ever find out the answer to that one.
The new acting commander on the scene, Commander Brendan Smith, worked hard at re-establishing some kind of order, locating and treating the injured, collecting together the dead. A lot of people had been killed. Sixteen army chopper pilots and some of the SAS soldiers, all the American CIA agents except Chuck Miller, hundreds of police officers and almost a thousand of the locals. Not to mention the hundreds of Russian and Chinese gangsters killed in the initial shootout. Identification of remains would be a problem. In many cases there wasn’t much left of the bodies. Many of the people missing would never be found - having been obliterated in explosions or incinerated in the resulting fires. The search was resumed, but without much enthusiasm. Everyone assumed by now that Brian Samuals was long gone.
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Around 3:00 PM in the afternoon on the western edge of the town someone crawled up out of the swamp. It was Mr. Cheng. He tried to scrape the mud off his face and clothes - as best as he could. It had taken him hours to get here. He’d retreated to the Macalister River behind the Supermarket. Followed it along. Swimming part of the way. Hiding from the choppers and then the drones. Slowly making his way through the swamp on the west side of town. Crawling through the mud. He looked around. Good. No-one else here. He'd make his way back to Melbourne, get re-organized. He looked back over Maffra. He could see a lot of devastation. Smoke billowing up everywhere. He screamed out at no-one in particular,
"Cocksuckers."
Then he turned and walked off.
Chapter 20. Caught.
We'd been in the house in Sale the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon not doing much. Had some lunch. Tried to calm down. Natasha was giving me the silent treatment. Sitting on the chair opposite mine. Saying nothing. Clearly upset. This had been going on for quite some time. I tried to get her talking once or twice but she instantly shut me down. I know that when someone is angry it’s a waste of time trying to talk to them anyway. Their brainstem is spiking, their neocortex is closing down, flat-lining. There's nothing in there but spite and anger, no reason, no thinking. Females are like that a lot of the time. Thirty per cent? Much more than males. So, it’s either walk away or argue stupidly in a way that can only escalate. Walk away or end up smacking them in the head. But I was never going to hit Natasha and she wasn’t arguing, just glaring at me.
Finally, she reached for the remote near where she was sitting and turned on the TV, switching through to one of the 24-hour news channels. We hadn’t watched any TV all week. I had deliberately avoided it and until now Natasha had shown no interest. Of course, I was all over the news. I'd assassinated the US Ambassador and the Victorian Premiere. I'd murdered the CEOs of the major banks. I'd killed Detective Chief Inspector Jack Williams, acting commander of the Organized Crime Division. They listed some of the others too. The retired newsagent and his wife, the former Parole officer, the pothead ex-con, the Bank analyst. Even the tailgaters. Bob, Chad, Harry and Max were their names apparently. Well, even assholes have names I s'pose. And why is it that Ambassadors and Premieres get assassinated while every-one else just gets killed. They put a lot of emphasis on the four chihuahuas. Everyone hated me for that. The TV went on to describe the ongoing situation in Maffra. A massive police hunt. Biggest in Australian history. The whole town was surrounded and blocked off. The authorities were searching for me, street by street, house by house. There were unconfirmed reports of SAS squads being dropped in to help with the search. In their case search and destroy, with prejudice. But something had gone wrong. There were reports of massive gunfire everywhere, explosions, aerial combat. Yeah that figured. I'd been watching out the window at the Airbase not that far away. I'd seen five fighter jets being scrambled. Roaring up into the air, turning tightly and screaming off in the direction of Maffra. But who the fuck was fighting who? I had no idea. There were unconfirmed reports that up to a third of the town had already been destroyed.
Natasha looked at me wide-eyed. She asked me slowly,
"What have you been doing?"
I replied,
"They're all fucking assholes. They deserved to die."
She was stunned by my reply. She was clearly finding it too hard to process. She asked me,
"What about the Russians chasing me?"
I shrugged.
"Yeah. Sorry. I haven’t got them yet. They're still out there. Well, I got that bitch Svetlana. That was her this morning."
I didn’t see the need to mention that Svetlana was primarily after me. Boris and Vadim too for that matter.
She sat on the couch, shaking her head. She cried out,
"Why? Why are you doing this?"
I hesitated. This was the part I really didn’t want to go into. But ah, what the fuck. Under the circumstances I couldn’t put it off any longer. I told her.
"I'm dying. Pancreatic cancer. Stage three, moving into stage four. I'll be dead in six months. It’s a miracle I'm still walking around. I figured I'd take some of the assholes with me."
I went on to explain the list, something of my code. Though I obviously hadn’t adhered to it very closely. Once you start killing ... it gets out of control very easily. She stared back at me, clearly overwhelmed by everything she was hearing.
She glared at me. She spoke calmly a
nd clearly, but with a deep underlying wrath just waiting to explode.
"What about me? Where do I fit into all of this?"
I mumbled something. I didn’t have any kind of answer to that. She continued glaring at me. Man! If a piercing gaze could kill I'd be fucking dead twenty times over. She said, with a disturbing absence of any obvious emotion,
"So what am I? Just a doll you can fuck a couple of dozen times and then throw away, discard like so much worthless rubbish. Something to keep your dick happy while you go around murdering people."
I tried to object. But I didn’t know how to reply. I mean, she'd summed it up pretty well really. She screamed at me,
"I was really starting to like you. I thought we had a future. But we never did, did we. It was all one big fucking lie."
I tried to explain.
"No. There's more to it than that. No, I mean, that’s not it at all."
She screamed at me again.
"You are a vile, self-centered misogynistic prick."
I probably rolled my eyes a bit. Never a good move. I was thinking to myself,
“Oh, here we go. I've heard that one before.”
She could see what I was thinking. She screamed at me in outrage and then she jumped up onto her feet. She snarled at me,
"You are a complete and total fucking asshole. Fuck you."
Then she stormed out of the room, grabbing the car keys on her way out. I’d left them on the bench, which in hindsight wasn’t smart. I heard the car door slam and then the car drive off down the street.
I sat back, sighed. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me. Far from it. Natasha was different though. There was something about her. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Flippant remarks aside, I couldn’t imagine living without her. I was lost in her beauty and her brilliance, enthralled by it, and always would be. Then it hit me. She had all my tools and weapons in the boot of the car. Cash. IDs. Fuck.
I turned the TV off and then just sat there staring at it. I felt completely and totally lost. What was I going to do now? Chase after Natasha? Sure, but I didn't even know where she'd gone. Probably back to Melbourne though, where else. But even if I found her what then? What would I say to her? I sat there glumly going over and over it in my head. Before I knew another hour had gone by. There was a knock on the door. I thought to myself,
“Oh, thank God, Natasha. She's come back.”
I jumped up and raced to the door, opening it eagerly. Fuck! A fucking alien jumped up at me, pounding into my chest knocking me backwards. It was shorter than a human, about four feet high with thick greyish skin, which looked moist and slippery. It had large black mournful eyes. I was flat on my back trying to crawl backwards away from it. It advanced on me ominously, screeching at me,
"Aark Aaark Aarrk, Varrk, Aark Aaark."
It was poking its overly large middle finger up at me in the universal gesture that everyone knows means 'fuck you'. Only to the alien it clearly meant more than that. It was still screeching excitedly,
"Aarrk, Aark Vaark, Aaark, Aark Kraak."
And still thrusting its finger up and down aggressively as it advanced on me. Now I don’t believe in aliens - or I didn’t up until that point - but from what I've heard they were always supposed to have an unhealthy level of interest in the human anus. The little fucker obviously wanted to probe my ass. And after that, God only knows what.
I jumped to my feet and continued backing away. It lunged at me several more times, continuing to screech at me. Each time that I managed to throw it off me it just kept bouncing back. Furiously. Aggressively. I drew the Glock and pointed it at the alien. He didn’t seem fazed at all, the exact opposite. He started screeching at me louder than before,
"Aark Aaark Aarrk, Varrk, Aark Kraaark."
He was jutting his finger up and down at me with obvious intent. Jumping up and down manically. Then he charged me again. Jesus fucking Christ. I had no idea what to do. I fired at him. Four rounds. Point blank. There was a strange short of shimmering, some kind of a shield. But it was obviously failing. I fired again, five more times. I could see lines appearing, like cracks. Then the shield was gone. The little alien went fucking nuts. Its face twisted into one of hideous rage and anger. It opened its mouth. I saw huge razor-sharp teeth as it jumped at me, clearly aiming at sinking its fangs into my face and throat. I fired my last six rounds, straight into his body and head. There was a sudden sucking, popping sound as it exploded into a slush of bluish grey goo. And then silence.
What the fuck! I couldn’t believe it. Fucking aliens now. Who else was after me? I threw away the used clip and reloaded. Just one magazine left now for the Glock. Fuck. I stormed out of the house. I had to find Natasha. But to do that I needed to steal another car. It took me another half an hour to find an old model car - without electronic key protection. I was finally able to steal a 1994 Ford. It didn’t take me long to hot-wire it. I drove off. I'd go back to Melbourne. That was my best bet. Though where I would look when I got there I didn’t have a fucking clue.
------------------------------------------------
Boris and Vadim had had enough. They'd decided to cut and run. It was painful for them to give up on chasing Brian Samuals, the fuckhead, and the stripper Natasha Brown. But they could see no way of going forward. After escaping from the prison transport on Wednesday they'd hijacked a car and made the driver take them to his house in North Melbourne. Then they killed him. They had a few weapons taken from the prison transport guards. Boris had a Beretta. Vadim had a Ruger P89 with a silencer. They each had a few clips of ammunition. On Thursday morning and all afternoon their eyes were glued to the TV, watching the accounts of the massive man hunt for Brian Samuals in Maffra. But by the end of the day with no report of an arrest or a death they'd concluded that once again Brian must have gotten away. There were so many people after him now, with all the power of the state behind them, they knew they had no chance of getting to him first even if they had a fucking clue where he was. Which they didn't. It was around 8:00 PM. It was time to go.
They had the car of the old guy who they'd murdered. They made their way outside. Boris still had a few underworld contacts from years back. Malaysian, not Russian, no connection with Alexandrovistch. He’d been able to get in contact with Sayid. Sayid had agreed to help smuggle the two of them out of the country, for a price of course. They'd go out by cargo ship signed on as crewmen - with all the right fake documents and passports. They'd be in Malaysia in a few days. Maybe a week. They had money. They would just disappear after that. They were going to meet up with him tonight. Boris pulled out of the driveway, down Malcom Lane and then turned into Harlem Street. They were driving past the stripper’s old apartment, the one where they killed the hacker. What a gutless squib he'd been. Suddenly Vadim cried out,
"Stop. Look. It’s her."
Boris slowed down, had a look. He saw the stripper, Natasha Brown, getting out of a car just outside of her old apartment. Thank the fucking gods. He pulled to a stop. He and Vadim jumped out of the car and ran across the street towards Natasha.
She saw them coming. She cried out,
"Oh no."
She tried to run. But they caught her easily. Vadim grabbed her around the waist and by the hair and dragged her back to their car. She tried to resist but he was much bigger than her, and much stronger. She was still holding the car keys. He grabbed them off her and tossed them to Boris. Then he tossed her into the back seat of their car. It was starting to get dark. There was no-one else around to witness the abduction. No-one called out to them to stop or called the police. Boris went over to Natasha’s car. He checked inside and then he checked the boot. Bingo. A bag of weapons and tools. A Glock, but with no ammunition. An AKM with a few magazines. Ammo for an Uzi but no weapon. Some shotgun ammo, but no shotgun. A hand-made garrote. A few tools. Wire cutters. Pliers. An axe. A baseball bat. Both the axe and the baseball bat were still covered in blood. There were some lock-picking tool
s and a few small electronic devices. He wasn’t sure what they were. There were a few bundles of cash, some IDs and credit cards, presumably fake. He grabbed the bag and hastened back to Vadim. In his rush, he didn’t close the boot properly. It was still half open. He passed the bag over to Vadim, jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off.
They returned to the house they'd just come from, dragging Natasha inside with them. They tied her hands behind her back and sat her down on the couch in the living room. They searched her and retrieved her mobile phone, placing it to the side. They stood over her, staring down at her malevolently. Boris yelled at her,
"Where's Brian?"
She stared back at them defiantly.
"I don’t know."
Vadim smacked her in the side of the face knocking her over onto her side. When she got up he did it again. Boris yelled at her again.
"Where's Brian?"
She repeated herself, trying to laugh at them.
"I still don’t know."
Vadim snorted. He pulled her to her feet dragging her up by her hair. He punched her in the stomach, hard. When she doubled over, he punched her in the side of the head knocking her over. He pulled her to her feet and then did the same again. This time he put his hand around her throat choking her as he pushed her back down onto the couch.
Natasha was crying and shaking. She was in so much pain, already. Boris continued to stare at her. He'd killed far too many people. He felt nothing. He urged her to give in.
"Where is Brian, Natasha? You have to tell us. This doesn't get any easier."
Vadim moved in and punched her a few more times. Natasha finally screamed out,
101 People to Kill Before I Die Page 25
