by Greg Curtis
By lunch time, when still nothing had shown, he prepared himself a light lunch and did a few exercises to keep the blood flowing. Waiting to die was almost worse than dying he discovered with some surprise. But then he’d never been good at waiting.
Then the phone rang and David almost jumped out of his skin at the unexpected sound. Then, once his heart had stopped thumping in his chest, he picked it up gingerly, half afraid Dimock had already got there and booby trapped it. But it didn’t explode, and instead Cyrea’s voice came down the phone. Her people had tapped into the network long before, and she was using it to try and reason with him. Of course she was out of luck. The situation was anything but reasonable.
Instead he tried to explain the true horror of the man that was coming, and failed. Words could not describe such a monster. Or just how dangerous he was. And much of the reason for his fear he simply couldn’t tell her. It was a national secret.
Fate he realized, could be a bastard. And this was one of those times. He couldn’t afford Cyrea’s presence. The chances were that he was going to die. He couldn’t let her die with him. But how could he tell her that, when she would insist on being with him? Nor could he tell her that Dimock was the only successful experiment that had ever come out of the top secret labs that the government never admitted to. His strength and speed had somehow been enhanced by a cocktail of drugs and genetic research that had killed everyone else. That too was a national secret as was the fact that human experimentation had been done in contravention of the treaties. It was also an international crime and a disgrace.
About all David could tell her was that Dimock had ample reason to hate him. He hated him first because David had been the one chosen to arrest him when he’d been part of the CIA. He hated him more because David was the one who had exposed him over a decade before, and proven to the world that Dimock was running weapons, carrying out private assassinations and profiteering on wars. In short David had taken away his comfortable lifestyle in a single day. Those sins were already grave enough to make Dimock want to kill him, as if he needed a reason. But then David had killed Dimmock’s half brother. For that sin David could never be forgiven.
Never mind that Dimock’s half-brother had been a psycho who had tried to murder most of Washington with biological weapons. That he had been a drug crazed nutter who had attacked the party that came to arrest him with sticks of dynamite. That when he had finally been wounded in the thigh by David he had held on to the explosives for too long and blown himself into the afterlife.
It didn’t even matter that Dimock had no love for his younger brother. He had no love for anybody at all. According to the shrinks like any psychopath he had no ability to have regard for anybody but himself. But as if to prove them wrong Dimock did have some regard for his little brother. He saw him perhaps as some sort of mini version of himself, and he claimed his half-brother’s every triumph of murder and mayhem as a minor success of his own. So when David had killed his brother, Dimock had taken that as a slap in the face. Especially when he was just about to kill millions of people for him and in the process make Dimock a god of destruction.
But those were all once more national secrets he couldn’t tell Cyrea.
The conversation turned rapidly from anger and fear to near hysteria, as with every word he didn’t tell her, she understood one thing more and more clearly. He thought he was going to die. He couldn’t hide it, no matter how he tried and Cyrea could not accept the idea. Nor could she accept that she couldn’t help. No matter how many times he told her that she would spell his doom if Dimock got her, it was something she couldn’t hear. It was true and horrible beyond description to have to tell her that, but there was no choice.
Cyrea wanted to fight, and he told her she was out-gunned. Though he would have desperately loved a ray gun, or anything that could cut a superman in flaming halves in a split second, he couldn’t even ask her for it. If he lost, Dimock would have a new weapon again. One that he would use with horrifying effect. And the party would be exposed with his failure. He couldn’t ask her for one.
Cyrea wanted to bring her people with her, a war party if necessary, and he told her they would all die horribly. She wanted to use their superior technology and he had to tell her it was useless against someone like Dimock, who needed none. He would use it against them. She wanted to drag him to safety, anywhere on Earth, or off it. But that too could never be an option. Dimock would never give up, would never stop. He would begin by torturing his neighbours, and anyone else who might have a clue as to where David was. Any clue. Whether they knew anything or not. Whoever lived in his house would always be at risk too, as he hunted for the previous owner. Then he would move on, searching for anyone who’d ever known David. His colleagues and friends.
And even if he couldn’t find David, the one thing he would find out was about her people. That much he could be guaranteed to torture out of the locals. His neighbours would be in danger. Pretty quickly he would find out about the party. Then they too would be in danger. Terrible danger. They had technology he would want, weapons he could use. And then the idea of being the first to kill an alien, well he wouldn’t pass up that thrill. Murder was pleasure for Dimock, torture and cannibalism, pure ecstasy.
Then their mission would end. Dimock would care nothing for their mission. He cared only for himself. And murder. But for both Cyrea’s people and his own, it was important that it continue. Even David had finally accepted that much. The loss if Dimock had his way would be incalculable.
He had to be stopped. Permanently and by David. Like it or not, this was one battle David would have to face alone.
But then it always had been. He knew that as he let Cyrea scream and eventually wind down to tears. As terrible as this was, as awful as he was being to the woman he loved, this was his duty, maybe his last one.
There was always a price for doing one’s duty properly. Sometimes it was bearable, sometimes not. But it was always his duty.
He would not fail.
Chapter Thirteen
The assault when it finally came was not what he had expected. It was fast, and unbelievably deadly, as he had known it would be, but far more so than he could ever have prepared for. Where Dimock had managed to get an F16 from he couldn’t even guess.
The first warning was the sonic shock wave as the jet broke the sound barrier somewhere overhead, rattling his armour plate windows and shaking the roof. David recognized the sound instantly for what it was, and what it meant. It was Dimock, laughing at him. Telling him that no matter how he’d prepared, it hadn’t been enough. He could well be right.
Then came the guns as Dimock returned in an attacking dive, opening up with the canon. Armour piercing bullets that simply tore their way through the reinforced structure of his house. David threw himself aside and watched the bullets scream their way through where he had just been. All around thunder shook the house as though it was made of paper.
But while he hadn’t expected a fighter jet, that didn’t mean David had no defences against it. Though it took him a few seconds to remember it. The same radars he’d set up for the helicopter gunships could track a jet. And the same weapons could shoot it down, in theory. It was only that the jet was far faster and more agile. It required a different approach.
He grabbed the mobile launcher and sprinted outside the second after the jet’s noise started quieting down and he knew its pass was over. He'd grabbed it in Afghanistan eight years before, from renegade Taliban soldiers, although he had never thought he’d need the launcher. But years of paranoia had meant he’d hung on to it after the mission was over. It had been designed for use against helicopters, particularly jet powered helicopter gunships, but in theory it could heat seek anything. It was only the question of whether it could keep up with a fighter that worried him.
He watched the fighter banking away from him as he activated the weapon and dropped the miniature missile in the tube. It was as he recalled, designed for proximity detonation
rather than impact, and that was the best he was likely to do against an F 16. He just hoped it was enough.
The fighter began its return arc and he sprinted for the nearby trees, hoping he hadn’t been seen. The longer he spent strafing an empty house, the happier David was. Especially as he had to wait and stare down the barrel of the approaching jet to have any hope of hitting it. He stood behind a particularly tall tree waiting as the plane grew larger and larger in his sights.
Then it began its second strafing run, and he watched bullets streaming from it, straight at his house. They churned a path of violence from the hills to his door, and then through it and on to the lake. At least he hadn’t used the rockets. But all the time it was coming closer in the cross hairs.
Finally, after an endless few seconds of nerve racking torment he felt the moment as the plane came within range, and squeezed the trigger. A tiny, ridiculously gentle touch for the bone shattering violence of the weapon.
He heard noise beyond noise. He physically felt it, just as though he was inside a giant bell when thunder struck it. Flames shot out everywhere, turning his back instantly into a sun burnt mess, while the recoil flung him like a rag doll. Even as he flew he was wondering why a recoilless missile launcher should have such a kick. But by the time he hit the ground he had no answer, and he didn’t care.
Fortunately he had the pleasure of watching the missile leaving a high-speed trail as it streaked directly at the jet. At the last instant he saw the jet start taking evasive measures, veering off sideways, but it was too late. David celebrated as he saw the missile closing fast, and then witnessed the glorious explosion. It was like Guy Fawke’s Day as a huge fireball appeared in the air, with small trails of sky rockets streaming from it. The concussion of noise from the explosion buffeted him a few seconds later, but caught up in his joy he didn’t care.
Then the bits and pieces of metal began falling from it. Small blobs of grey metal, falling like stones, burning stones, while a much larger piece looked like a comet descending to Earth. Most of the remains of the plane fell out of the sky somewhere in the hills behind his house, no more than five hundred yards from where he stood, but the smaller pieces were scattered so far and wide that many were still landing behind him. It was just lucky that the recent weeks had included a lot of rain, or the forest all around him would be catching fire.
Of course he realized, that didn’t mean Dimock was dead. In fact knowing him, he was probably still in perfect health. Either he had ejected before the explosion, assuming that was, that he was actually in the plane, or else another of his allies was now toast. But at least the F 16 was gone. One threat had been removed.
David realized quickly that his next move had to be to return to the house, fast. If Dimock wasn’t dead, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to believe he could be that lucky, he would by now be tracking David, who was out in the open. A sitting duck for whatever nightmarish plans he had.
He slung the launcher under his arm, not ever wanting Dimock to get hold of it, and sprinted for the front door. At any second he expected a hail of bullets to rip out from nowhere and cut him down. But it never happened and he made it inside and slammed and locked the door before sliding the steel bars shut behind him.
Then he knew came the hard part, as he somehow managed to slow his heart rate down again, and resumed his seat in front of the computer screens. And after that he just waited.
He had at least survived round one. Round two wouldn't be far away.
Chapter Fourteen
Round two began a little less violently than round one, but David knew it was going to be no easier. Especially when Dimock simply walked out of the bush to stand in front of his house and call him out. Of course David wasn't going to do something so stupid. He wasn't some freckle faced kid stupid enough to let words get to him. Besides the fact that Dimock knew he was armed, and was still happy to walk out in front of his guns, was a clear sign that he thought David had nothing that could touch him.
The sad thing was that he was probably right. The worse thing was that he had to listen to the madman's endless diatribe as he told him what he was going to do with him and what he thought of his defences. Before he turned to the simple insults.
“The country bumpkin bit suits you.” Dimock meant it as anything but a compliment. Dimock despised country folk with a vengeance, calling them dirt grubbers, yokels, inbreds and anything else he could think of. David knew he’d grown up in a semi-rural community, and hated it with everything he had. But then again, he hated everyone anyway.
“You’ve gotten even more ugly.” David said it deliberately knowing the unusual effect it would have on the madman. But it was also true. The operations and years of drug taking had made him even more a parody of a human being than he had been before. His muscles stood out like vein covered knotted ropes even on his forehead. The cheek bones had become even sharper, and his ever present scowl looked like a death mask as the skin stretched tight over the sinew and bone. He watched with satisfaction as Dimock flushed red with anger.
“And you’re more stupid. You know what I’m going to do to you, and you still try and make me angry. It all comes out of your hide.” The terrible thing was that he was telling the truth, and they both knew it. Dimock, even with all his preparations was too strong for him. He always had been. In fact he looked stronger than ever, more intense, and there was something in his nervous shake that spoke of increased speed too. Maybe he’d started into PCP as well. Nothing would surprise David, and with the cocktail of drugs already swimming in his system, the reactions would as always be unpredictable, except in that they would make him more deadly. Everything made him more deadly.
“First you’ve got to catch me.” Which wasn’t going to be that easy, David hoped. Inside the house he still had the steel lined walls to protect him, and some other traps he hadn’t used. They wouldn’t stop Dimock forever, but they would give him some time.
“Not exactly a challenge.” And as he’d hoped, Dimock charged the wall, expecting with his supercharged strength that he would just rip through it as he had a thousand others. For once things went differently as he hit the wall with an almighty crash, and unexpectedly stopped suddenly. The whole house shook at the impact, but the wall remained stubbornly solid. Dimock however, began cursing at his new bruises.
“Maybe a small one then.” David still wanted to goad him, stupid as it undoubtedly was. Dimock was an arsehole, and anything he could do to make his life more unpleasant than it already was, had to be good. He took the opportunity of his sudden surprise to fire a few more shots at him from the sniper hole, and watched with satisfaction as he dodged in surprise. Of course nothing hit the madman, he was simply too fast. But at least he had to move.
“Very small.”
Dimock moved out of range of his front camera, and David knew he was probably going to get something to help him pry open the walls of the house. Maybe another gun, although anything less than an armour piercing high calibre machine gun wasn’t going to help much. The bullets would just lodge in the wood and armour plate.
A few seconds later he returned with a crow bar, and David realized he’d raided his boat shed. But far from annoying him, it gave him hope as the madman fell into his first trap. Metal walls weren’t just about strength. They could carry electricity too. He flipped the switch that activated the generator and waited as he approached.
Sure enough Dimock immediately attacked one of the walls with the bar, moving like a panther. He hoped to force the sharp end through the wall and then pry it open like a tin can with his inhuman strength. He should have known better. David had seen a video of him using the technique on an armoured door many years ago, and it wasn’t something he was ever likely to forget. Nor was what he had done to the occupants of that fortified home.
Dimock ran at the wall in a blinding rush, crowbar held overhead like a spear which he stabbed deep into the wall. There was a loud thump followed by an explosion, as seventy thousand vol
ts ran from the bar to his hands. The bar’s tip came through the wall, but then stopped as the motive force behind it vanished. Screams told him that he had finally hurt Dimock, but also that he was still alive. No doubt his thickened skin had given him more protection than would a normal man’s.
He focused the external cameras on him and watched as Dimock limped quickly away, holding his hands. David knew he’d been burnt, and suddenly he also understood where he was going. The same place he would with serious burns. Cold water. David realised in that same instant that he had a chance to finally kill Dimock, maybe his only one.
