The Monarch

by Jack Soren

  “We need to get out of here,” Emily said, looking at her watch. They had minutes, at best. And no idea where Lew was.

  “What about Lew?” Emily said, as if reading his mind. Jonathan looked at the two women and his daughter and was suddenly very aware he was the only one with a weapon. Then he made a hard choice.

  “Emily, we have to go. Our time is up,” Jonathan said. Emily looked at him and then down at Natalie. She finally let go of the door and they stepped into the elevator, heading up to the surface.

  “Thomas flew you here?” Sophia said when Jonathan explained how they’d gotten there. She was standing with her back to the elevator door as the car slowly crawled up. “And he’s going to fly you out of here?”

  “That’s the plan,” Jonathan said. The elevator dinged that they’d reached the main floor.

  “Where’s your sister?” Emily asked Sophia.

  “I have no—­”

  “Down!” Jonathan shouted as the elevator doors opened. Lara stood twenty feet away, a gun leveled at them. He wanted to pull his weapons and shoot, but his first reflex was to protect Natalie. He grabbed both Natalie and Emily and pushed them against the side wall, gunshots already echoing. Jonathan looked up and realized Sophia was still standing there with her back to the door, looking at them without understanding what was happening.

  The first three shots slammed into the back of the elevator, chips of Formica and aluminum ricocheting around the elevator car. The last three hit their mark, the slugs thunking into Sophia’s backpack. She grunted as she was smacked against the back of the elevator before she collapsed to the floor. Natalie screamed.

  Jonathan went to pull his guns, but he realized one was missing. Emily had already grabbed one and was firing wildly out of the elevator. He grabbed his remaining weapon and came around the edge of the elevator door firing. The sound in the confined space was excruciatingly loud, but their shots were in vain. Lara had already run out the complex’s front door into the courtyard. After exchanging an incredulous glance with Emily, Jonathan checked on Sophia, while Emily kept her weapon pointed out the elevator door. Blood on the back of the elevator wall told him at least one of the bullets had found its mark.

  He unhooked her backpack and tossed it away so Sophia could lie flat. The pack’s interior had captured two of the slugs, but one had passed through into Sophia’s shoulder. The shot looked through-­and-­through, but she was bleeding a lot. Jonathan wanted to help her but precious seconds were ticking away.

  “Put pressure on her wounds. I’ll be right back,” Jonathan said, running to the courtyard door and pressing himself against the wall. Something bumped him and he realized Emily had come with him and was pressed against the wall beside him. Lew, I hope you’re okay because this is a match made in heaven.

  “Wait here,” Jonathan said before he jumped out, ready to fire. But there was no danger in the courtyard. No Lara. No Nathan. But it wasn’t completely empty; Thomas lay on the ground at the far edge, a knife sticking out of his back. Jonathan looked around to be sure he wasn’t walking into a trap, and then made his way around the perimeter of the courtyard. His cell phone rang when he was halfway. He answered it as he continued to walk, scanning the area for attackers.

  “Where the hell are you? We’ve got trouble up here. I need your help,” Jonathan said, a strange buzzing coming from the phone.

  “Yeah, that’s going to be a problem,” Lew said.

  Jonathan reached Thomas’s body and knelt beside him. He put two fingers on his neck.

  “Looks like there’s no rush,” Jonathan said, standing up. “We just lost our ticket out of here. Thomas is dead.”

  “What? Who killed him?”

  “I didn’t see it, but my money’s on his psycho girlfriend,” Jonathan said, realizing the buzzing wasn’t coming from the phone. It was above him. He eased back toward the complex, scanning the skies, until he found the source of the sound banking toward them from the east. It looked like a small airplane but before he could identify it, the craft seemed to buck up in the sky as something fell away from it.

  “What the hell?” Jonathan said.

  Then the missile’s engine ignited. It screamed across the sky, leaving a vapor trail behind it. And it was headed right for them.

  “Jesus!”

  Jonathan jumped up and ran straight inside the complex, not caring if someone was watching or not. The three girls were just outside the elevator where they’d dragged Sophia, a bloody trail smeared across the floor. A bag was open beside her and Emily was wrapping gauze around Sophia’s shoulder.

  “We’ve got to go! Now!” Jonathan yelled, shoving the phone and gun into his pockets. He ran over to them and moved to pick Natalie up. She pushed his hands away.

  “No, Dad. Help Sophia,” Natalie said.

  Jonathan could still hear Lew shouting from his phone but he couldn’t stop to explain. An explosion reverberated from outside. The complex hadn’t been the target. At least not the primary target.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” Emily asked.

  “Our luck running out,” Jonathan said, picking Sophia up. Her blood-­soaked shirt was gone and she was wearing just a black sports bra. He noticed that Emily’s field dressing was almost textbook. Not bad for a writer.

  “My . . . bag,” Sophia said, wincing.

  “Got it!” Natalie said. Jonathan was shocked and proud at his daughter’s behavior, but he didn’t have time to tell her.

  “Let’s go!” Jonathan said, running out of the complex with Sophia in his arms, Emily and Natalie behind them.

  Thick, black smoke rose up over the hill, just about where the landing strip was. Suddenly not having a pilot didn’t matter. Apparently the attack’s first strike was to destroy the target’s egress. The plane was gone. As he ran toward the edge of the courtyard, Jonathan heard the drone’s engine again. Up to the right, he saw two rocket engines ignite.

  “Faster!”

  They reached the edge of the courtyard just as missiles slammed simultaneously into one of the outbuildings and the main complex. The blast wave knocked everyone into the jungle like paper dolls in a wind.

  Jonathan’s head rang and it took him a second to realize someone was yelling at him. Slowly the ringing faded and the world swam back into focus.

  “Dad, you’re hurting me!” Natalie said in his grasp. He didn’t even remember grabbing her.

  “Sorry, honey,” Jonathan said, releasing his grip. Sophia was in the vegetation a few feet away looking no worse than she had. Even her bandage had held. Emily was on her feet, leaning against a tree, shaking her head. At first he thought she was trying to clear the ringing in her ears, but then he saw she was crying and her head shaking was from despair, not physical pain. She was looking behind him.

  Jonathan turned and saw what was affecting her. The smoke was still clearing, but they could see the flattened complex now. He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket.

  “Lew! Lew!”

  The line was dead.

  Jonathan looked up at the carnage again. Chances were the levels had pancaked all the way down to the vault. It was a miracle the natural gas holding tanks down there hadn’t ignited. Even unignited, they had probably been breached. If Lew had survived, his good fortune would be short-­lived. And the attack wasn’t over. He tried to call Lew back, but there was no answer.

  “Where’s Uncle Lew? Was he in there?” Natalie asked.

  “I . . . I don’t know, baby,” Jonathan said, fighting to keep any quavers out of his voice. Then, over all the mayhem, he heard the buzzing again. He pushed up to his feet. If they were lucky, they had a few minutes while the drone reconnoitered the damage. The hangar and one of the outbuildings were still intact.

  “Sophia,” he said, helping her sit up. “Is there a boat or any other way off the island?�
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  “There’s no boat, but there’s a helicopter about a kilometer to the east,” she said. She rooted through her bag and then gave herself an injection. “For the pain,” she said when she saw Jonathan watching her.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a pilot in that bag, would you?” he said.

  “I can fly it, if it’s still there,” she said.

  “Is it out in the open?” Jonathan asked, wondering why there hadn’t been an attack down there.

  “It’s stored under some camouflage netting,” she said. They still had a chance. But was she in any shape to fly? Then he thought of something that put a pit in his belly.

  “Can your sister fly it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She started to get up and almost fell back down. Jonathan caught her and helped her up to her feet.

  “Do you think that’s where your father and Lara are headed?” Jonathan asked.

  “There’s nowhere else to go, especially with that thing flying around,” Sophia said. “If he’s alive he’s headed there and he’d need Lara to fly him out. I’d say it’s a safe bet.” Jonathan nodded, noticing Sophia’s lack of concern about whether her father was alive or not. He turned his attention to Natalie.

  “We’ve got to go, baby. Emily, are you going to be all right?” Jonathan asked. He was trying not to think about what was devastating her. The only thing that mattered now was getting Natalie off this island before the drone fired its remaining missiles.

  Emily took a deep breath and managed a nod. She was far from all right, but she knew the situation they were in. Jonathan wanted to try to call Lew again, but he was afraid of what the act would do to Emily. Maybe the vault’s reinforced walls . . . but that was just wishful thinking. And it was distracting. He needed to focus.

  “Let’s go,” Jonathan said. The foursome skirted the edge of the courtyard and then headed up the road that led to the chopper pad, Jonathan with his arm around Sophia in the lead, Natalie and Emily trudging behind them.

  High overhead, he could still hear the buzzing, but he ignored it. Looking would serve no purpose. From what he could tell, the drone had launched three of its smaller missiles. His military knowledge was pretty rusty, but they looked like Hellcats. And it still had one left. A direct hit would be deadly, but what concerned him more were the two larger tubes hanging under the bird. Hellcats were twenty-­pound firecrackers compared to what looked like five-­hundred pound bombs. Just one of those would give the entire island a very bad day.

  As they walked, he tried not to think about Lew. But it was impossible. Lew was more than a friend. He’d lost a brother.

  “WHAT DO YOU mean, you killed her?” Nathan said as he motored his way up the road in his wheelchair with Lara trotting beside him. Lara felt the electronic question as if it were a slap in the face, blinking and rocking her head back. “You idiot.”

  She was sure it was the disease slipping through. After receiving a look that had approached pride when she’d killed Thomas, Lara had expected more of the same or congratulations for killing her disloyal “sister.” He had to hate her as much as she did. Even so, she’d had more than her limit, money or no.

  Over the past few days, Lara had done things—­incredible things—­she would never have thought she was capable of. She felt accomplished, significant, and dangerous. Her father should be treating her as such.

  “You’ve got the item,” she said, gesturing toward the cryocase in Nathan’s lap. “What do we need her for?”

  “This is useless without your sister’s research. I might as well have your brain here.” Nathan said. Lara got the implication and winced yet again.

  “She . . . she had a backpack,” Lara said, looking at the rising smoke in the distance that used to be her home. Then she looked back at the cryocase in Nathan’s lap. “How did you get that in your lap?”

  Nathan shakily raised his arms and showed her he was able to move. The limbs looked unstable and weak, but this was the first time she’d seen him physically move without the serum in years. She could tell that while he could move, he was shamed by the indignity of shaking and not being in control.

  “When your sister destroyed her lab, she destroyed my regimen, as well. It’s been hours since I had a neuro-­blocker injection,” Nathan said. “Now go back down there and find your sister’s research. Don’t come back without it.”

  “What about the guards at the helipad?” Lara asked. They hadn’t finished the cleanup job. There were still four guards alive—­assuming they hadn’t run off into the jungle when the attack started.

  Nathan reached a shaky hand down beside him and struggled to pull a gun up, showing her he was armed.

  “You don’t even look strong enough to pull the trigger. How are you—­”

  Nathan grunted and shot a bullet into the ground at Lara’s feet. The look on his face after seemed to say he was surprised he’d been able to do it too.

  “Now get going. Go through the jungle in case anyone is following us. And no heroics,” Nathan said. Lara’s eyes brightened for a moment. “If anything happens to you, who’s going to fly me off the island?”

  8:00 A.M.

  LEW PULLED HARD on his leather belt, cinching it tight around his thigh, just above where a six-­inch piece of rebar jutted out. The pain was bad, but nowhere near as bad as it was about to get. He took off his duster and tore several long strips out of the lining before removing the canvas belt. Then he took what remained and hung it up in one of the empty displays in Kring’s vault. He couldn’t admire his work in the oppressive dark, but he imagined it was breathtaking. The duster wasn’t very old, but it was a mess. This was the perfect end for it. He just hoped he wouldn’t suffer the same fate.

  He coughed from the dust in the vault and wiped sweat and grime off his face with a forearm. The attack aboveground had sent concrete crashing down from the ceiling, deadly rebar spears set free as the huge chunks exploded on impact. He dove out of the way of most of it, losing his cell phone in the process, but a short, energetic length of rebar had bounced around the vault until it found a home piercing his thigh.

  “No time like the present,” Lew said, putting the cloth belt between his teeth. He clamped down hard, gripped the rebar, which was slick with blood, and after mentally counting to three, he yanked it out. He knew you weren’t supposed to do that until you were in the ER, but his chances of climbing out were pretty slim and would be even slimmer with a spike through his leg.

  Lew howled and grunted from the pain, biting so hard on the belt his jaw hurt. He panted and spewed saliva out around the edges of the material, taking deep, hard breaths through his nose until the waves of pain and nausea finally passed. He wrapped several strips of the lining around the hole in his leg with shaking hands, glad he couldn’t actually see the wound. He’d need real medical treatment soon if he was going to keep his leg, but one limb was the least of his worries right now.

  He felt around the room, tripping and limping over piles of debris, until he found the vent. No dice. It was blocked on the other side, the tunnels now just a container for detritus. He threw himself against the wall, grimacing from the pain, and tried to catch his breath.

  “Think, Lew.”

  After a minute or two, he felt around until he found a hunk of rebar about three feet long. Then he felt along the walls until he was back at the elevator. He took a few deep breaths and then shoved the rebar into the seam in the elevator doors and struggled to pry them apart. They slowly parted and he inched them open. Battery-­powered emergency lighting from the elevator shaft cut through, seeming as bright as laser beams, his priceless addition to the vault highlighted across the room.

  “Nice,” he said, giving the duster a final two-­finger salute.

  A few hunks of concrete lay at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but for the most part it had weathered the attack unscathed. Lew looked up an
d saw the elevator car hanging above him in the short, two-­story tube. He reached in and yanked on the ladder attached to the wall. It seemed solid.

  “Now the hard part.”

  Lew stuck the length of rebar through his belt loops at the small of his back and then stepped onto the ladder with his good leg, gripping the rung above his head. He bent his leg slightly and then launched himself up to the next higher rung, grabbing it with his relatively good hand and pulling himself up. After a moment’s rest, he repeated the act—­again and again—­until he was high enough to drop down onto the elevator car’s roof.

  He took a minute to catch his breath before opening the trapdoor there. Sitting on the edge of the opening with his legs dangling into the car, he grabbed the opposite edge, and then let himself hang down, dropping the last few inches to the floor on his good leg. Pulling the rebar out of his belt loops, he used it to pry open the elevator doors.

  Dust and smoke spilled in from the level four hallway, making him cough. He hopped in anyway and tried to get his bearings.

  Rubble and small fires were everywhere. The emergency lighting was working here as well, but the cloudy air made it of little help for more than a few feet. Lew heard something behind him and spun around, grabbing at his empty holsters. He’d lost his weapons in the attack and hadn’t even noticed. Unarmed, he raised the rebar over his head as the noise moved toward him. Several mice, rats, and a few rabbits emerged from the din and ran past him, disappearing down the wrecked hallway.

  “Yeah, okay,” Lew said and followed the mini stampede, figuring they were headed for the closest exit instinctively. At one point there was so much debris he had to dig out a passage before he could squeeze by, but he managed to work his way the full length of the corridor, finally reaching the other elevator that led to ground level.

  He summoned his strength and proceeded to pry the doors open. They were more stubborn than the other ones and when he finally got them open he saw why. Rock and debris had fallen down the shaft, crushing the elevator car like an aluminum soda can. With the doors open, it all came spilling out into the hall. Lew dove to the side, howling in pain as he landed on his wounded leg.