The Hunted

by Steve Scheunemann

  “Looks better than I expected. I want to go in. There might be some useful stuff in there.”

  Knowing that scavenging supplies had little to do with Matt’s desire, Abbey replied “Okay, let’s see what we can find.”

  As they approached the yard evidence of the struggle became more pronounced. There were spent cartridges from the weapons the monks had used defending their home. There were scars left by bullets on walls and the ground. Here and there were stains that could only be blood. No bodies, thankfully. Matt did not want to see any of the men who’d raised him left dead and picked over by scavengers.

  Entering the main hall Matt was once again taken back to a time when he roamed these halls, the lone child among the stern, silent men who had all dedicated their lives to training him. He once again considered that he’d been honed as a weapon, or at least a tool. While he knew what the men had stood for, he did not know what specific purpose they’d had in mind for him. He did not expect to discover that truth here today, but he felt certain he needed to search this place, even if it meant throwing away any lead they had on the pursuit that was coming.

  33

  July 12, 2080

  Near the Silent Heart Monastery, Rocky Mountains

  The bunker was secured. There was no way in given the tools at hand. It would take heavy equipment to get in there and that would take time to arrange. The closest stuff was in Denver, and would have to be loaded on trailers and shipped to the base of the mountain. There were no adequate roads so it would be seventeen miles overland. They’d have to leave the trucks and transport the stuff suspended underneath heavy lift helicopters to the site. That in turn raised the issue of the helicopters. The closest helicopters capable of doing the job were not even as close as Denver. They were in Butte, Montana, or had been anyway. Depardieu had taken over command in the field after Mtumbe’s death and she had already ordered them moved to the clearing at the base of the mountain. They’d be there by nightfall. The earthmovers and other excavating equipment would arrive by morning. Here on the scene she had McLeish and his beasts, Delacruz, a squad of BGP uniforms and Miller, who had arrived only an hour ago and was busy trying to bypass the security systems on the bunker’s door. Wallace was en route in case they needed to blow something up.

  Miller had been called in because the uniform she’d sent to force the door was dead. The trap had been subtle and they’d completely missed it. There had been no visible electrodes or obvious signs of the danger. The ground near the door was damp. In fact, it was more than damp, it was wet. That was not unusual in the area. The door was near the back of a shallow cave and there was some run-off from the mountain stream that flowed through. Not enough to have a current, but enough to leave the ground perpetually sodden. In addition, the way the water fell near the edge of the cave left it filled with a light mist. It was actually pleasant and a welcome relief from the heat outside the cave.

  As the uniform had approached the door a voice came from hidden speakers. It could only be the one Malone wanted dead, this Matt character.

  “Please step back, just go away and leave us alone. We don’t want to fight and you can’t get in anyway. I promise we’ll just disappear, you’ll never see us or hear from us again.”

  Nodding at the door, Depardieu had tersely said, “Open it, if you can.”

  It had looked like a heavy wooden door. The uniform, armed with a heavy fire axe, had taken exactly one swing. The axe had bit deep and Depardieu knew it would not take long to get through.

  Then it happened. It must have been one massive flow of electrical current. It was so powerful that sparks actually jumped from one droplet of mist to another, creating a web of electrical fire that no one in the cave could escape. The sole reason that more people weren’t dead was that, as pleasant as the cave had been, it was small and the uniform needed room to swing the axe. In a moment he lay there, axe embedded in the door, although even the thick blade showed signs of warping from the amount of current that had passed through it. The uniform lay still, his hair and most of his clothing completely charred away. His eye sockets stared emptily at the roof of the cave as smoke rose and mingled with the mist.

  Miller was working his magic and would soon ferret out the traps, but Depardieu cursed the time lost. She had already wasted a full day after the damn uplink. They had instantly zeroed in on the source. She’d had Delacruz take her there in the small two-seat attack helicopter he’d acquired. They had landed on the precise spot only to find that the source was more than fifty meters underground. Since they couldn’t dig down, they were actually more than a half mile from the door and had lost plenty of time in locating it.

  To make matters worse they could not even be sure that the fugitives were in there. There might be another way out, and although the makeup of the mountain precluded that, the possibility had to be considered. They might even have been gone before Rachel Depardieu and her team had arrived.

  She had sent McLeish and the dogs to look for signs of escape, but the dogs were weak when they could not sight their prey. With a runner in sight nothing on earth compared to the Great Hounds. As trackers, she wished they were Mtumbe. His death still bothered her. He had been good, very good even, but had been taken out like so much trash. There was one bruise to his head and a knife wound in his skull. No other wounds, indicating the fight had been brief. These people were dangerous, and they were good. They’d set an ambush for the greatest tracker in the world and had pulled it off. In addition, Mtumbe had been among the fifty or so most deadly fighting men on the planet. None of his skills had helped him much.

  Depardieu had consulted with Malone, of course. She really needed to pull this off. Then she’d eliminate the Deputy Director for Special Operation’s new squeeze and move into that spot herself. She’d seen Malone’s appraising looks and knew he was interested. Well, so was she. If she could not reach that level of power on her own, then she’d get next to one who had. She would show Malone things that no woman ever had. The BGP had taught her a lot about sex, but she’d learned so much more since then. First the capture.

  “Miller,” she snapped.

  He visibly shrank back as he looked into her pale blue eyes, eyes that looked like ice on fire. He was a Hunter and a damn good one, but the woman scared him. Miller believed in one thing. The genetically inferior had to be culled from the species. He wasn’t cold about it, he didn’t cause extra pain for fun, but he could torture as easily as any other Hunter if needed. He’d always considered himself cold, but compared to Depardieu, he was not even close. He shivered a little on the inside and met her gaze steadily.

  “Yeah?”

  “Get that damn door opened. I want to end this thing today.”

  “We’re not even sure he’s in there. We’ve lost one man already; if I rush this thing we may lose me too. I know that wouldn’t bother you all that much, but it would tend to be rather a low spot in my day, don’t you think? I’ll just be doing these things my way if it pleases you. Just the same, if you think you can do it faster we could switch jobs. I’m a pretty fair shot with that ‘Eliminator’ of yours.”

  “Just do it as fast as you can, huh?”

  “Spot on, Ducky. I’ll have her opened before you can say Piccadilly digger doo.” With that, Miller got to work. The trap that had taken out the uniform was a good one, but the tech behind it was a little dated. It was at least five or ten years behind the best the BGP could do. It had worked mostly because it was unexpected. From here on the going might be a little slow, but he’d get through it just the same. The electronic system had not been made that he couldn’t bugger.

  34

  July 9, 2080

  Silent Heart Monastery, North America

  Matt stood silently in his old room. He didn’t know what he should be feeling. It was much as he had left it. Oh, it had been searched, but not torn apart. Here was the room of a small boy, but a boy who spent his days in martial pursuits. A boy who was being fashioned into a weapon, yet
at the same time a boy who was loved and cherished, a boy who was being taught to think for himself and to live life with always a thought for others.

  The weapons and equipment he’d packed so long ago for his mountain survival test lay on the floor in a corner. They would have been replaced in the chest at the foot of the bed by Brother Fidelis on his return from dropping Matt in the snow, but the Hunters had obviously thrown them aside after the search. Matt picked up his bow and quiver of arrows. He half thought he should add them to their supplies, and after a moment’s thought he did. Despite the added bulk the addition of a silent weapon that could reach out to 100 yards accurately was too good to pass up.

  He found there among his discarded things his old knife. It was an antique. A SOG Government model. It had been made in the early 1990s and was still a fine knife. The steel was good and hard. Tough to get a good edge on it, it then held that razor sharp edge through some hard use. Matt had used and abused that knife for most of his childhood. He remembered when on his eighth birthday Brother Fidelis had given it to him.

  “Matt, a good blade is a thing of beauty. Treat it well and it will always take care of you. Never forget that a sharp blade is safer than a dull one. This blade, if allowed to dull, will take a sight of work to get sharp again. Try not to let that happen. By working at it frequently you’ll keep it sharp. Should it ever become dull through neglect or misuse, then always remember that quality steel can always take on a new edge.

  “Start with quality in a blade or a man and it will always be there. Start with a cheap blade or a man of poor character and that’s all you’ll ever have, no matter how you dress it up.”

  The blade had been wickedly sharp and Matt had kept it so under the monk’s watchful and patient guidance. Holding it in his hand now Matt could see a thin layer of surface rust, a few pits in the steel and worst of all that someone, a Hunter no doubt, had used it as a pry bar to remove some of the floorboards. The floor was hardly the worse for wear, but the tip of the blade had been broken off. The knife was now about a quarter of an inch shorter than it had been. The edge too had been abused. Slipping it into a belt sheath, Matt hung it from his waist. He had a whetstone and oil in his pack. He would restore the knife. The missing tip would require reshaping the blade a bit, which meant more than just sharpening the blade. He’d have to remove quite a bit of steel to retain the original shape at the new, shorter length. A tall order with just the stone, but nonetheless a job worth doing.

  Dreading what he’d find, Matt turned from what was left of his childhood and faced the door that led to Brother Fidelis’ room. He found his heart racing and his hand shaking as he reached out to open the door. He’d only ever been in the small room once before. It was the night he’d woken screaming and delusional with fever-spawned dreams. Some childhood malady had come with a wicked fever that had spiked at 106 degrees. It had been serious, made especially so by the fact that the brothers dare not seek medical attention for him. At the hospital his DNA would have been scanned and he never would have left alive. It was later that same year that Brother Veritas had joined the order. Veritas was a fully trained doctor and things had been a little easier at the monastery after that.

  At that time the room had been spartan; a bed, small writing desk with a lamp, and a stool. Not even a proper chair, just a three-legged stool. Opening the door, Matt dreaded more than anything finding the corpse of the man who had been his father in every way that mattered.

  The room was empty. The bed was gone, as was the desk and lamp. Four bare walls, one small window and nothing more. There was a stain on the floor that could only be blood. No effort had been made to clean it. Matt stood and stared. He had no idea how long, a minute, a day, an eternity? He could not take his eyes away from that stain. He’d always known Fidelis was dead, but staring at the last remains of the man brought it home in a way nothing else had. Just a spot on the floor, that was all that was left of him. No doubt the BGP had desecrated his remains, they had killed Brother Fidelis, the Abbot, Brother Veritas and all the rest. Then they had killed Angus too. Strangely, standing here in the small room once inhabited by the gentlest of warriors, Matt did not feel the surge of anger he’d become accustomed to. Fidelis and Angus both had tried to shape Matt to their own purposes. Purposes they had never fully shared with Matt, yet still he’d loved and trusted both of them. Both were older and wiser than he. Both of them had died protecting him. What was it that they had wanted of him? What was it that made him worth the death of the two best men he’d ever known and all the other monks who’d died protecting his location? Had they known he would survive all alone in the face of the blizzard all those years ago? Had they known that he would spend the next several years existing on the fringe, preying on those weaker than he was and helping none? Would they have been proud of what he had become? Where would he be today had Angus not come along?

  Angus had saved him from life on the fringe, but at what cost to himself? Matt had only recently learned of Angus’ other life. The life he had abandoned to take on Matt. Why? There was a woman who loved him and an important job waiting. Matt knew enough of the man’s sense of responsibility to know that abandoning the duties he’d had with the NZMC could only be done if he felt that what he was doing was more important. What was more important? The only thing he’d done was…Matt.

  “Matt,” Abbey spoke softly in his ear as she laid her head on his shoulder and offered silent support for the grieving he was going through. Even though Brother Fidelis had been dead for years, the pain was brand new again.

  “Just one more thing I have to see. We need to go to the Abbot’s office. He had a hidden safe there. I only know where it was because when I was small I used to sneak all through this place. That was, in fact, a part of my training. I was far better at it than they ever knew though. I once followed Fidelis there and overheard him and the Abbot talking. In that safe I think I’ll find a clue as to why I was here. What did they want from me? I need to know. Had they lived, I’m sure I would now be doing whatever it is they wanted. I need to find out if it’s still what I want. Maybe they were training me to sneak into BGP headquarters and kill the director, or even Minister Fadwah himself. I need to know.”

  “Okay Matt, let’s go find the safe. How do you know you can open it though?”

  “I don’t, but I have a few ideas that might work.”

  Entering the abbot’s office, Matt felt strange. Always before, he had quietly knocked then waited in silence for the abbot to admit him. There was no longer a door to knock on and the abbot’s desk was a splintered ruin. It had been shredded by the thousands of flechettes that a Packwood carbine spits out. In this case, multiple Packwoods on full auto. The flechettes were stuck into the remnants of the desk and had gouged the rear wall, a wall made of native granite, to a depth of several inches. The razor sharp mini blades lay scattered all through the ruins of the office.

  “Oh, this is bad, Matt. They would not have shot up furniture that way. Not furniture alone.”

  “I know. He was here. They killed him in the most final way they had. There wasn’t anything left. Nothing to bury, nothing to morn, and nothing to remember. Or so they thought. They eradicated the order and every member of it. I never took their vows, but I was a member just the same. This was my family, and if Fidelis was my father, then the Abbot was my grandfather. He was stern, but he loved as deeply as any man I ever knew. He led this order, and he trained a small boy to be something. Something better than genetic trash.

  “He gave his life to training me and to keeping his faith alive. I don’t even know if they were catholic or some other Christian faith, but they were men who had dedicated their lives to two things: first serving God, and second raising and training me.”

  “So where is this safe? Don’t you think they would have searched here pretty thoroughly?” asked Abbey.

  “Yep, but they missed it. It’s right there.”

  “Where?”

  “You don’t see it, do
you? I’ll give you a hint. It’s small. It’ll hold a few data disks, not much more.”

  “Okay I give up where is it?”

  Walking over to the deep gouge in the wall behind the remains of the desk, Matt put his hand on the joint between two stones and traced the crack to the edge of the gouge. Taking out his old knife, he worked the broken tip into the crack.

  “It’s not really a safe and there is no combination. It’s really just a false front on the stone with a small storage space behind it. They didn’t find it because the disks would be invisible to their scanners and it looked like a natural flaw in the rock. In fact, it is a natural flaw in the rock with only minor modifications. The space is no bigger than a half inch high or across and narrows to nothing at the back. Fidelis and the abbot discussed it in some detail. He told Fidelis that the information there could get a lot of people outside the monastery killed. Fidelis told him that it was the actions of the people that might get them killed. The safe merely contained an accounting and future plans. It was protected by motion detectors and auto-guns, Fidelis and the Abbot talked about it extensively. Since none of it was located right with the safe it stands to reason that when the BGP broke in the system was destroyed along with the rest of the monasteries security systems. Once it was no longer operative there would be no tracing it back to a small crack in the wall. It was set up to stop unauthorized access from those who knew about it, and not to give it away to those who didn’t. To an outside observer it would appear to have been covering the desk. A desk that was pretty much shredded.