by Jack Soren
“SIR!” ONE OF the guards shouted when he saw Jonathan walking onto the helipad with his hands over his head, the vial sticking out of one and a small black rectangle sticking out of the other. Nathan turned and saw what he was holding as the guards brought their guns to bear on Jonathan.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” Nathan ordered.
“I want to make a deal,” Jonathan said as the guards walked toward him and Nathan rolled behind them. “That’s far enough!” Jonathan raised the vial up as if he were going to smash it on the stone at his feet.
“No!” Nathan shouted, actually using his voice, which was a slurred sound like someone coughing. Even the guards turned to look at him.
All but one fell back into line behind Nathan.
“Sir, don’t listen to him. I can just—”
A gunshot rang out and the guard fell to the stone with a hole in his head, the gun in Nathan’s hand still smoking.
“What kind of deal?” he asked with his calm electronic voice.
“The serum for passage on the helicopter,” Jonathan said.
Nathan raised an eyebrow and seemed to mull over the offer, his eyes never leaving the vial in Jonathan’s hand.
“Choose,” Nathan said.
“What?”
“Choose. The serum for one seat on the chopper,” Nathan said. Jonathan had expected nothing less from this monster.
“How many seats for the serum and Sophia’s research,” Jonathan said. He held the black rectangle up for Nathan to see, praying he was far enough away for the disposable lighter to look like a USB drive. There was no way in hell he was letting Nathan anywhere near the real thing.
Nathan’s eyes widened.
“Deal,” Nathan said. “Bring them to me and they can get on the chopper.”
Jonathan took a few steps and then threw himself to the ground, throwing the serum up in the air. The guards and Nathan followed the vial up with their eyes and Jonathan made his move.
LEW FELL AGAINST another tree, catching his breath. There was only about twenty feet of jungle left before he reached the edge of the cliff, and still no sign of the crazy woman who had shot at him. Had he missed her? Was she already down the other side?
Rested as much as he dared, he stepped away from the tree and heard a rustle overhead. He looked up just in time to see Lara pounce on him from her hiding place up in the branches overhead. He managed to dodge most of the attack, but even a glancing blow in his condition sent him reeling. He turned over just as she recovered from her attack and leaped on him again, striking him again and again. Her fists slammed into both sides of his head over and over. Then she pulled a knife and plunged it at his chest.
Lew caught the thrust in time, but his strength was gone. It was all he could do to hold the blade in place over his heart. She reached back and slammed her thumb deep into his thigh wound.
His howl masked the sound of gunfire in the distance.
ONE OF THE guards caught the falling serum just as gunfire rained down from the trees overhead. Jonathan realized that Sophia hadn’t lied; she couldn’t shoot worth a damn. Emily had wanted to do it, but she was a little bloodthirsty at the moment. Still, accuracy wasn’t the point and in Sophia’s defense, she’d hit one of the guards, though just in the arm. Jonathan continued counting and when Sophia had expended all the bullets in his two guns, he vaulted up off the ground.
He grabbed the wounded guard and spun around behind him, turning him into a shield. Using the guard’s submachine gun, he fired at the other two guards. They fell like straw men, dead before they hit the stone. He watched the guard holding the serum slam to the ground, the vial rolling away from his dead fingers toward Nathan. Then Jonathan’s shield fought back, slamming an elbow square into Jonathan’s face, stunning him. He fell to the stone, shaking the buzz in his ears away.
The guard took back control of his gun, turning and pointing it at him. Jonathan kicked up and sent the weapon flying. The guard pulled a knife and leaped onto him, but Jonathan caught the knife hand before it hit home. But this was a well-trained mercenary. Jonathan had more training than most, but his skills had atrophied over the years. His conditioning had given way to late night bill-paying sessions and backyard barbecues. He was no match for the attacker, but he fought on.
LEW, OUTMATCHED AGAINST Lara, was no longer fighting but just trying to get away. He still had the size advantage and with a little leverage, he bucked her off him and scrambled up toward the crest in the jungle hill. He had no idea what was on the other side, but it had to be better than this.
Less than a foot from breaking through the wall of vegetation, Lew slipped and fell. He knew she’d be on him and he spun around to see her leap toward him, knife in hand. He mustered all the energy he had and kicked with his good leg, sending the knife flying into the bush. From the cracking sound and the accompanying howl he figured he’d probably also broken her hand. The pain just seemed to piss her off, though, her attack nothing more than frenetic.
Lew slipped around behind her and got her in a headlock, squeezing. If he could hold her long enough, she’d pass out from lack of blood making it to her brain. But it was like riding a bucking spider, legs and arms reaching back, kicking and clawing at him.
SOPHIA WATCHED NATHAN reach a shaking hand for the approaching serum, as she brought her foot down to stop the vial’s roll. He looked up and saw her standing a few feet away. She thought she must have been quite the sight with her shirt gone and her bandaged shoulder, though she guessed he was probably more focused on the gun in her hand.
“Sophia—” Nathan started.
“Shut up,” Sophia said louder than she’d meant.
“I didn’t say anything yet,” Nathan’s cool electronic voice said.
“I don’t want to hear anything from you ever again. Drop the gun,” she said when she noticed his shaking hand raising it toward her. “Now!”
Never having heard her speak like that to anyone must have had an effect on him, because he instantly complied.
“Please, Sophia. Let’s be reasonable. You’re not going to murder me in cold blood. We both know that.” She ignored him, bent down, and picked up the vial, wincing from the pain in her shoulder.
“I don’t have to shoot you to kill you, Nathan,” she said. “We both know that. All I have to do is smash this and destroy the research and you’re dead.”
“Sophia, honey. You’re not thinking straight. I didn’t tell her to hurt you. That was all Lara’s doing! Please, don’t—”
“Take it from me,” Sophia said calmly. When Nathan looked at the gun in her hand, she tossed it aside. “Go ahead. You’re always having someone else do everything for you. Let me see you do something for yourself. Just once. Take it.”
“How can I take anything?” Nathan’s electronic voice said, his panicked eyes juxtaposed against the calmness of his tone.
“We both know you can get out of that chair, now. You just shot a man. There’s no neuro-blocker left in your system by now. I can tell from your shaking. Get up and take it or I swear I’ll smash it.”
“Wait! All right, all right!” Nathan mewled with his natural voice through his malformed lips. He fumbled for a moment, but then slipped his feet off the chair’s footrest and rose from the seat.
Sophia slammed the fist of her free hand into Nathan’s face. Blood and teeth exploded out of his mouth as he crashed back into his chair. When he finished coughing and spitting he looked up and saw Sophia had picked up his loaded dropped gun. Then she flicked the stopper off the vial with her thumb and turned it over, letting the blue life-giving fluid drain out onto the stone at her feet.
“No!” he screamed. Nathan vaulted himself out of the chair for the final time and landed in the puddle at her feet. “No, no, no, no.”
He pawed at the fluid on the ground like he could somehow convince it t
o not be spilled. Crying and mewling, he bent down and pressed his lips to the serum. Sophia pointed the gun at him and cocked the hammer back. Then he wasn’t crying any longer. He was laughing. A maniacal, insane laughter that sounded like a funhouse’s soundtrack. He looked up at her, his eyes dead of emotion but his maw continuing to howl. Sophia turned her head and considered him, like a cat considering a mouse it had pinned under its paw, the outcome inevitable.
“Please, please,” Nathan managed between gasps. Sophia would never know if he was begging for a reprieve or for an end. And she didn’t care.
She pulled the trigger.
JONATHAN AND THE guard both looked up at the sound of a gunshot.
Jonathan kneed the guard in the groin, taking advantage of the moment, kicked the knife out of his hand and slammed his head into the stone. The guard was either out cold or dead, Jonathan didn’t care which.
Exhausted, he pulled himself to his feet and went to Sophia’s side. He understood what she’d done and didn’t blame her at all, but as much as he cared about her, he was more worried about Natalie. If Sophia couldn’t fly them out of there, they wouldn’t be very far behind Nathan.
“Are you—”
“Get Natalie and Emily,” she said, handing him the gun. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“STOP . . . FIGHTING,” Lew managed. “Don’t make me . . . kill you.”
“I . . . I hate you!” Lara screamed. “I’ve always hated you. Even when you were fucking me, I just wanted you to die on top of me. Die and smother me!”
“Lady, you need a vacation,” Lew said, realizing it wasn’t even him she was fighting with. He was just the weapon.
Lara made a noise that might’ve been a growl and continued her defense. Lew was tiring, but he still had enough strength to do what he knew he should. Still, crazy or not, he just couldn’t bring himself to shift the leverage and snap her neck. Chivalry wasn’t dead, it just felt like it.
Finally Lew let her go and rolled off before she could come at him again. He unsteadily got up on his feet, standing up the hill from Lara, who was up on her feet, crouching like an animal stalking its prey.
“Don’t,” Lew said, holding a hand up like he was stopping traffic. “Just hang on a—”
She attacked as if he was speaking a foreign language. This time she didn’t try to take him down. She drove him back until they smashed through the jungle crest, gripping each other as they flew into the unknown.
JONATHAN WAS DOING his best to stay focused, but it was hard with everything that had happened, everything he had lost. They weren’t out of the woods yet. He lifted Natalie up into the helicopter’s rear cabin where Emily was waiting to help buckle her into her seat.
He turned to close the door, but stopped when he saw a rock on the ground. Impulsively, he picked it up and scratched The Monarch’s butterfly symbol into the side of the helicopter. Jonathan wasn’t sure who he was forgiving: himself for killing, whatever the reason, for the first time in years; Sophia for going along with her “father” for so long and for what she’d just done; Emily for helping Nathan when this all started. He just wasn’t sure. One thing he did know was it wasn’t for Nathan. He’d never forgive that bastard for what he’d done.
He stepped back and looked at the image, the image he’d carved so many times over the years trying to do the right thing. The image that had started the dominoes falling on this horror. He blinked to clear his blurring vision when he finally realized who it was for. He was forgiving Lew for dying. It was ridiculous, but necessary.
“You’re not getting away that easy,” a voice said behind Jonathan.
The rock slipped from Jonathan’s fingers and fell to the ground. He turned around and his breath hitched in his chest. A half-dead Lew hobbled toward them, his leg painted red.
“Uncle Lew!” Natalie shouted from the cabin.
Emily turned around and poked her head out of the chopper, vaulting to the ground a second later at a full run. She hit him so hard with her open arms he almost fell over. She kissed him, tentatively at first, but then harder as she realized he wasn’t a dream.
Everyone walked over to greet him. Emily finally let him go and Lew watched Jonathan approach, a few tears slipping down Jonathan’s exhausted, grinning face.
“Jesus, if you’re going to be a baby about it,” Lew said with a big smile.
“Shut up,” Jonathan said, throwing his arms around him—moments before Lew’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.
9:15 A.M.
“YOU’RE SURE YOU can do this?” Jonathan asked for about the fourth time from the copilot’s seat. They had to use headsets to communicate over the roar of the chopper’s engine, which Natalie thought was the greatest thing since the Internet.
“And if I can’t?” Sophia said with a forced smile.
Jonathan looked behind him at Lew, belted unconscious into one of the five seats, next to Emily and Natalie. Emily had bandaged his leg, but they weren’t out of the woods. He’d lost a lot of blood and looked about three shades too pale.
They should have been winging toward the mainland, but they still had the drone buzzing around. They were waiting for it to either drop one of its remaining bombs for cover or to simply leave. Jonathan knew the latter was unlikely.
They had no idea where Lara was, but every minute on the ground seemed like a bad idea.
Suddenly the ground rocked from two huge explosions and a fireball shot up in the sky where the hangar used to be. The drone had dropped both of its five-hundred-pound bombs.
Somebody wants this island gone.
“Go!” Jonathan shouted.
They lifted off as hell spewed up from the earth. Jonathan was sure the half ton of ordinance had touched off the natural gas pooled at the base of the island. Trapped by the decimated complex, which was acting like a giant cork, the energy was finding other avenues of escape.
Rock and fire exploded into the air all around the helipad like someone had set off a sequence of claymore mines hidden in the dirt. Most of it arced over them to the other side, but gravel pelted the chopper like machine gun fire. Jonathan held his breath in the midst of all the screaming. If any of the larger chunks hit the rotor, they were done.
They skimmed the helipad, headed for the drop-off, then suddenly the helicopter rocked and threatened to slam down into the stone. Sophia had no choice but to try to gain altitude, but the chopper didn’t rise, it just rocked back and forth.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know! It’s like . . . there,” Sophia said, pointing out the side window as she winced and fought the controls.
Jonathan saw it. The explosions had blown the camouflage netting up in the air and it hooked onto the landing strut. The chopper’s down-draft was threatening to send it into the tail rotor.
Jonathan unstrapped himself and headed into the back of the helicopter. “Be careful!” Sophia shouted after him.
Jonathan nodded as the swing of the chopper almost sent him flying. He made his way carefully over to the door.
“I’ve got it,” Jonathan said, pulling it open. The second he did, a hand reached up from below, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him out the helicopter’s door.
“Dad!” Natalie screamed.
Hanging on to the landing strut, Jonathan was face-to-face with Lara. He looked down and fought to keep calm. Not now, not after all this!
Lara hung on with one arm and pounded on him with the other, the helicopter swinging back and forth, threatening to leap from his grasp. Her eyes were empty, the pupils huge saucers, the whites scored with red. Jonathan knew he had no choice, he just prayed Natalie couldn’t see him.
He gripped the strut with both hands, waited for the next swing of the chopper, and used the momentum to kick. He slammed his boots into her, knocking Lara off,
and watched her plummet toward the stone helipad. Before she hit, another gas explosion blasted a beach ball-sized boulder out of the cliff. The projectile took most of Lara over the cliff and down where her father’s body lay. Jonathan unhooked the netting and dropped it down.
He waited for the chopper’s movements to calm slightly before he tried to climb up into the cabin, but just as he did, he saw the drone heading straight for them, the single remaining Hellfire missile seeming to stare at him. They had only one option now.
Emily helped pull him back inside and he slammed the door shut before stumbling over to his seat and strapping himself in.
“Go!” he shouted into his headset the second it was on, pointing out the window. Sophia looked out the window behind them and saw the drone. She immediately throttled up.
“We’ll never outrun her!” Sophia said, despite trying to do just that. Jonathan knew she was right. He wracked his brain, but could come up with only one solution. He leaned over and flipped the switch controlling Natalie’s headset so she couldn’t hear what he was about to say.
“We need to make her shoot at us,” he said.
“What!” both Sophia and Emily said at the same time.
“It’s our only chance. We can’t outrun her or fly higher, but she only has one missile left. Once that’s gone the worst she can do is follow us.”
“Follow what? We’ll be sprinkled all over the Indian Ocean!” Sophia said, still trying to outrun the jet as it closed in on them.
“Hellfires are air-to-surface missiles. They’re designed for stationary targets, not moving ones. If we can get her to fire, we can dodge it,” Jonathan said, though he had no idea how easy it would be to dodge a missile, even if the logic in his theory was good.
“You’re bloody crazy!” Emily said. He didn’t bother to refute her.
He reached out and put his hand on Sophia’s.
“Trust me,” he said looking into her eyes. For the longest time she looked back, then she looked at Natalie behind them. He knew she was thinking that if he was willing to try this with her back there, then it really was their best chance.
