THE EXTRACTOR

by J. T. Brannan

  Yeah, at least he still had his pot.

  He took another drag and asked himself what good he was doing there, looking out over the southern edge of the tower. They’d be able to see headlamps from miles away, and who the hell was gonna climb this thing in the dark anyway?

  But Hank was wary about choppers, worried that the mountaintop could be hit by some sort of aerial assault. But that was nonsense too, and Tommy knew it. After all, how the hell would anyone even know they were out here? It was probably just paranoia, from all the shermsticks Hank had been smoking. Just wound some people up that way, he guessed.

  But dammit, why did he have to waste his time staring out into space? He threw the butt of his reefer onto the floor and ground it up with the heel of his climbing shoe, decided he was gonna have a little word with Hank Thompson, and turned back toward –

  What the hell?!

  He felt something pass by his face, so close it nearly touched him, a waft of hot air like the passage of a bullet. But there was no sound, nothing at all, and he opened his mouth to shout a warning to the others when a shadow emerged from the darkness, racing straight toward him . . .

  Lee couldn’t believe his bad luck, the guy turning like that at just the wrong moment, the dart missing him by mere millimeters. He had more darts, but no time to load another into the pipe before the guy started shouting, and Lee was on his feet before his conscious mind had even made the decision, the long, black-carbonized chain appearing in his hands as he ran, closing the distance quickly, releasing the chain . . .

  The metal links whipped out toward the startled man, the end wrapping itself around his neck, choking his calls for help before they could leave his throat. The guy’s hands reflexively reached for the chain around his neck, but it was too little, too late; Lee wrenched him forward by the chain and connected with a heavy right hand to the guy’s jaw, dropping him instantly.

  Lee used the chain to slow the man’s fall, careful at the same time not to break his neck by doing it, loosening the hold with a practiced flick of his wrist.

  He turned quickly to the center of the mountaintop, seeing the faint outline of the group of figures some fifty yards distant, clustered around the tent.

  But something was wrong, they weren’t just chatting anymore, they were turning this way, staring, pointing . . .

  Hank Thompson’s eyes snapped toward the southern edge of the tower, though he didn’t know why . . . was it a sound of some kind he’d heard? Something metal . . .?

  “Did anyone hear that?” he whispered to the others, eyes straining to pierce the darkness. Dammit, he couldn’t see anything, why had he been staring into that damn cellphone all night?

  “Hear what?” Fletcher said, his head turning to stare southward like Thompson.

  “Don’t know,” Thompson murmured, a bad feeling creeping up through him as he looked around at the rest of the mountaintop, from south to north, and from east to west. He still couldn’t see a damn thing, anywhere. “Tommy?” he called out, drawing his Colt .45 before the kid even had a chance to answer, already knowing deep down that something was desperately wrong here. “Connor?” he called out to the east, when Tommy didn’t answer, nodding at his other boys to draw their guns. “Lee?” he shouted to the west. “Brad?” to the south.

  Nothing, from any of them. He slid the safety off, his finger caressing the trigger.

  “Get the girl,” he told Fletcher; and even in the darkness, he could see his old friend smile as he nodded and headed into Patricia Evans’ tent.

  John Lee knew that he could sprint in a straight line across the mountaintop and reach the four men in under six seconds, perhaps even before they had time to fully react. And yet he could see that Thompson was already drawing his gun, staring toward where Lee had dropped the fourth unconscious body.

  And so, instead of racing straight ahead, Lee moved fast in a semicircle, using the dark and the shadows as his friends, knowing that they would never see him. They might hear him though, he realized, and he moderated his speed, careful not to crash into the rocks underfoot. The soft-rubber-soled climbing shoes he wore helped too, and he covered the distance in near silence.

  He was still twenty feet away when Fletcher entered the tent, what looked like a hunting knife in his hand; the other three men were still outside the tent, Thompson with a handgun, another with a sawn-off shotgun, the third with what looked like an Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol, beloved of street thugs for decades. They were looking around the mountaintop in something close to panic, and Lee knew why – nobody liked the feeling of being stalked from the shadows, of not knowing what was coming to get them. Or who.

  But then Thompson started shooting, the panic getting to him, firing wildly in every direction, and then the guy with the shotgun was firing too, then the machine pistol opened up, spraying its bullets across the mountaintop at an uncontrollable fifteen hundred rounds per minute.

  Lee threw himself to the ground to avoid the gunfire, while keeping his forward momentum going by crawling low across the rockface, eyes averted from the muzzle flashes that would have destroyed his night vision.

  And then he was there, right in front of them, without them even realizing, their night vision annihilated by their own gunfire, and he saw that the MAC-10 had locked empty, the rounds all spent; and in the next instant, Lee leaped to his feet and slammed a hard front kick into the man’s chest, blasting him six feet back across the rockface.

  Lee took note of the position of the other two men and let his body turn in a graceful pirouette, before unleashing a whip-like spinning kick toward the guy holding the shotgun, his heel connecting with the man’s head before he could get the weapon around. The contact would have been better with a proper combat boot, but it was still enough to knock the man instantly unconscious.

  Lee sensed, rather than saw, the big Colt .45 of Hank Thompson turning his way, and he pounced forward, gripping the gun-arm at the elbow and turning it away; Thompson pulled the trigger, but the powerful round discharged harmlessly into the sandstone floor, even as Lee’s open palm smashed the gang leader in the face, shattering his nose. Lee’s other hand crossed over to the man’s right wrist then, the one that had been gripping the elbow shifting to join it, grabbing and twisting it violently, Thompson screaming as the wrist was broken, the big Colt falling to the ground. Lee sensed that, despite the pain the man was in, he was aiming to throw a punch with his undamaged hand, and Lee took the advantage and threw a short kick up into Thompson’s balls, before smashing an elbow into the side of his head. Thompson’s eyes rolled up into his head and he dropped unconscious to the floor, all three men taken out in a matter of seconds.

  But those seconds were enough for Fletcher to have dragged Patricia Evans out of the tent, jagged hunting knife up at her throat as he dragged her toward the edge of the tower. Even in the cloudy darkness, Lee could see the violence in Fletcher’s eyes, the resolution to do whatever was necessary to win; or at least, to survive.

  “Whoever’s out there,” Fletcher snarled, “you better back away from me, right now! Right now, or else I do the bitch, I’ll slit her freakin’ throat wide open! I –”

  His words turned to a violent yell of pain as a dull black shuriken throwing star lodged itself into his hand, causing his fingers to spasm and open, the hunting knife falling to the rocky ground beneath him.

  But Fletcher was close to the edge now, and Lee watched in mounting horror as the man pulled the girl, who was screaming now for all she was worth, toward him, obviously with the intention of throwing her right off the mountain.

  Lee was in motion instantly, covering the distance between them in the blink of an eye, his body colliding with Fletcher’s and knocking Patricia out of the way, even as the momentum of the two men took them both toward the edge, closer, closer . . .

  And then over, into the inky blackness below.

  Lee felt himself travelling into the ether, unconnected to anything except the body of the other man, holding each
other in a wrestler’s embrace as they plummeted to the earth beneath them.

  But Lee felt one of his hands reach out, as if of its own accord, his vice-like fingers touching, then grasping the rockface, digging deep, clenching, gripping; and a moment later, he felt his descent arrest fully, a wrenching pain tearing through his shoulder. The shock of the sudden stop tore Fletcher from the embrace, and Lee ignored the pain as he reached out with his other hand instinctively to grab for the man’s still-falling body, unwilling to see him die.

  Lee’s hand grasped Fletcher’s wrist, and hauled him back up, so that the man could grab hold of the rockface himself. He watched in the dark, trying not to think about the hundreds of feet of empty space beneath them, as Fletcher’s hands latched onto the sandstone, the toes in his specialist climbing boots digging in moments later.

  Lee took in their situation quickly, saw that they were a good ten feet below the lip of the mountaintop; and he was just about to start climbing back up, when his peripheral vision caught sight of a small blade arcing toward him.

  He lifted an arm to deflect the blow, surprised that Fletcher was able to operate so fast; he’d seen the hunting knife fall to the ground after the shuriken had hit the man’s hand, so the blade must be a new one, drawn and used in one fluid action, even as Fletcher had taken his grip on the rockface. Lee had to admire the man’s tenacity, even as he knocked the knife-arm to the side and slammed a callused fist into his face.

  But it wasn’t enough to take the man out, and the knife was soon swinging back toward Lee; only this time, Lee didn’t deflect the attack, but instead reared back out of the way, gripping tight to the rock as the blade swiped past him and lashing up with one of his booted feet to the underside of Fletcher’s jaw.

  The strike connected hard, whipping the man’s head back violently and causing him to lose his grip on the sandstone tower completely, and Lee watched in mute horror as Fletcher’s body sailed away into the night.

  And then, for the second time in as many minutes, Lee himself was tumbling through the air as he threw himself after Fletcher, one hand reaching out to grab the man by the ankle of his pants while the other scraped down the side of the tower, before his fingers closed around a barely discernable outcrop, gripping tight and holding them secure.

  Lee breathed out slowly, once again ignoring the renewed pain in his shoulder, as Fletcher’s body swung back and forth in the dark night beneath him.

  Damn, Lee thought as he looked back up toward the top, now twenty feet away. Now he was going to have to haul this sonofabitch all the way back up there.

  Less than five minutes later, Lee was back on the top of the tower, the unconscious body of Pete Fletcher laid out alongside the others – all now bound and cuffed, the arms of a deliriously grateful Patricia Evans wrapped around him.

  “It’s okay,” he said, hugging her back, knowing only too well what she must have gone through. “It’s okay.”

  She held him close for a long time, before breaking away and looking out over the mountainside. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I really don’t.”

  “Thank your father,” Lee said. “He hired me.”

  Patricia nodded and smiled, then looked back out over the mountainside. “But . . . how are we gonna get down from here?”

  Lee smiled in the dark, and pulled out his cellphone, dialing a familiar number.

  “You want the chopper now?” the guttural tones of Marcus Hartman asked over the crystal-clear connection.

  “You got it,” Lee confirmed. “Send it over, okay?”

  Lee wasn’t a big fan of technology, but he had to admit, it sure as hell beat hauling eight men and a woman off the mountain by himself.

  “Yes, sir,” Hartman said. “It’s on its way. See you back in the Caribbean, my friend.”

  The blades of the chopper could be heard just minutes later, and a smile covered Lee’s face for the first time that evening. The mission had been a success; the girl had been rescued and – once he’d dropped these sonsofbitches off with the local cops – he’d finally be on his way home.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Phoenix said happily, putting her arms around John Lee and kissing his cheek. She was going for the lips, but she felt his resistance and changed at the last moment. She was so glad to see him, and yet deflated at the same time; he was still cold toward her, unwilling – perhaps unable – to reciprocate the feelings she had for him.

  And yet they had been close before, been lovers more than once, since John had rescued her and they’d started working together. But he’d always been so conflicted, like he’d wanted to be there with her but at the same time felt that he didn’t deserve to be.

  She knew he’d been married once, had had a little girl too; and she was also one of the few people in the world who knew what had happened to them. Something like that, she thought sadly, how could it fail to affect him? It was a long time ago now, but some wounds just didn’t heal as well as others. And he’d told her many times that he felt strongly for her, might even love her, but was scared to commit, to endanger her.

  She couldn’t blame him, not really . . . and yet when he flinched as she’d tried to kiss him, she couldn’t help but feel a terrible emptiness inside.

  “I’m glad to be back,” John said to her, holding her by the shoulders and leveling his gaze with hers. “I missed you.”

  Phoenix felt her heart leap in her chest, and yet when John leaned in to kiss her, it was still just on the cheek.

  Lee wanted to kiss her on the lips, wanted to hold her, embrace her, even to carry her up to his room and make love to her, then lie there with her in his arms and talk to her for hours, and yet . . .

  Why couldn’t he do it?

  Helena and Anabelle had been gone for years now, and there was no bringing them back, so why couldn’t he let go? And yet it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t afford to let anyone close to him, couldn’t let anyone use Phoenix to get to him. It was bad enough that they worked together, but he knew that if they entered into a full relationship, then people could use her to get to him. And Heaven only knew, there were plenty of people out there who wanted to get to him.

  Even if you discounted all of the people whose criminal livelihoods he had destroyed since starting his extraction business, there was still that psycho Brad Thompson from the CIA, the guy who’d recruited him into the Special Activities Division before refusing his resignation just a few short and painful months later; there was the terrorist group from that same damn war which still had a death warrant out on him; and there was an entire Triad group that wanted him dead, in a feud that went back nearly two decades. And that was just the ones he knew about.

  No, he thought sadly, being too closely associated with him was a recipe for disaster; as painful as it was, he was best off keeping his distance from Phoenix, best off keeping things professional.

  At least, he thought in satisfaction, things were fairly safe here on the island. It was a short trip out by boat to Nassau, a quick hop across the Caribbean to Miami and the US mainland, but the place was pretty remote, and hardly anyone knew it was inhabited.

  Mabuni had also set up radar and sonar sensors everywhere, and was plugged into the mainframes of most of the world’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies. If anyone came for them, they’d know about it well in advance. It wouldn’t, Lee promised himself, be like that monastery in Tibet – yet another episode in his life he was trying to forget.

  He supposed that was why he was always so keen to be out there on a mission – it helped him forget his past, and all the bad things that it held.

  Not that headquarters was a bad place to spend his downtime, Lee told himself as he watched the crystal azure waters gently lapping the soft white sand of the beach he and Phoenix stood on, the speedboat he’d piloted from Miami standing at a floating pontoon just twenty yards away. The temperature was in the high eighties, the sun a
flaming ball in a perfect blue sky.

  Yes, he considered as he followed the shapely form of Phoenix toward the main house, where lunch was being prepared for them by the live-in chef, life on the island wasn’t too bad at all.

  “So, the new NVGs work well, John?” Mabuni asked as he sipped at his glass of Mouton Rothschild.

  There were four of them around the table, set on a high verandah overlooking the Caribbean. Lee, Phoenix, Mabuni and Hartman celebrated their latest success with lobster and wine, although Lee forewent the alcohol and kept to mineral water. Part of it was for health, but the main reason was that he’d given up drinking when he’d entered a Buddhist temple in northern Thailand, not long after he’d lost his wife. He took a sip of his water, thinking about his mother all those years ago, back in Hong Kong.

  She’d always tried to lead him down the Buddhist path, even when they’d moved to Washington, DC with his father’s work – and then three years later to the Philippines, then on to South Korea, Japan and China after that. His father had been an American diplomat and they’d been stationed in US embassies around the world, always attending Christian mass to placate the people back home who didn’t like their diplomats to follow “foreign religions”. His father, for his part, had been of a similar mind; but he’d always let his wife follow whatever faith she wanted to – in private, of course.

  Back then, however, Lee had had no real interest in religion of any kind – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, they were all boring as far as the young John Lee was concerned. It was physical activity that interested him, and everywhere he went, he begged and cajoled his father into using his contacts to get him the best tuition available – swimming, diving, athletics, gymnastics, fencing, horseback riding, shooting, skiing, snowboarding, free-running, even skydiving, he did them all. At school, he was on the teams for football, soccer and basketball, but always felt more closely tied to those individual pursuits.