After a few minutes they shook hands. Swamp-boy moved to unload the first boat, reaching in with his prehensile vines and lifting the pallet of money out of the cargo section to set it down neatly, and separately, next to the existing cargo.
I checked the timer; twenty seconds. I took a bead on the leader of the boats, hovering my iron sights over his chest as I breathed in deeply, then let it out slowly, counting silently along with the detonator. At one second before the detonation I fired. I timed it so well that the rifle shot and the explosion happened almost simultaneously.
The pallet of cash exploded outward, engulfing the other four pallets in a wave of force. The shockwave knocked the closest men off their feet and the nearest pallets of cash blasted apart like confetti popper on Mardi Gras.
Boat-leader caught the round right where I wanted him to, in the chest. He fell backward and I followed up with a second shot, making sure he would never get up again. Since I knew the explosion was coming I didn’t flinch, just acted. I switched angle to the other leader, hovered my sights over him for a half second, and fired while he was still trying to stand up. He spun around as the bullet struck. I put a follow-up into him as well. Burning cash fell from the sky and the water filled up with hundred-dollar bills. It was a good day’s work.
Then the real gunfire started. From the beach on the right four camouflaged men with black-striped faces came out of the woods moving in a tactical crouch, sweeping their guns back and forth, firing at a near full-auto rate.
With the Army team on the scene I decided just to go for one of the phones and get out. They had it well in hand. I rolled over and was considering my best plan for exfil when I heard the noise. More boats.
I flopped over and peeked my head up; not a boat, an old WW2 style landing craft. It hit the far side of the beach, running up onto the sand a good twenty feet. The front opened and fifty guys with SMGs, shotguns, rifles, and blades came rushing out, shooting at the army team.
Then the supers arrived, and things escalated quickly.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
This was all my fault. The only reason they had an ambush waiting was me. The Army team walked right into a trap meant for me. I punched the ground next to me in frustration. The smart play would be to run. Let them take out the Army guys and think they were behind the whole thing. Then I could attack with impunity and not risk outing myself.
That would be the smart thing… but not the right one.
I rolled onto my knees and shouldered the rifle. I had them flanked as they ran toward the Army team, who had all taken cover except for one surfer looking dude who just walked down the middle of the beach. It took me a second but then I realized bullets were ricocheting off him. That was good. I popped off an entire mag, taking out a half dozen guys as they charged forward.
Several saw me and turned their guns my way. Then the high-powered bark of a sniper rifle echoed over the small arms fire and another ISO went down with a spray of pink mist where his head used to be.
Nice.
I jumped up, running for the trucks and for cover. The beach exploded around me in a hail of gunfire, kicking up dirt and sand. I slid feet first behind a truck, falling to my side as I came to a halt, firing my rifle the entire time. The slide locked back, and I hit the release, dropping the twenty round magazine while I fished out the replacement. It took a second, but I slammed it home. The force of the reload unlocked the slide and it jammed a round into the chamber for me.
I had a second to catch my breath and scan the beach for the two super-powered enforcers who showed up with the landing craft. One was engulfed in flame, burning like a walking bonfire, tossing fireballs at the Army team. The other, a girl who couldn’t have seen more birthdays than I had, ran off the ship and leaped into the air. She turned into a ball of green gas with a weird face as she filled the air and moved sedately toward the Army team. She wasn’t fast but I had a feeling whatever gas she turned into was deadly. Fire guy first
A punk with a sawed-off shotgun whirled around the truck and pointed the 12-gauge at me with a smile like he had won first prize at the state fair. “I’m gonna be rich!”
I kicked out, connecting with the barrel and sending it flying upward as he pulled the trigger. The boom was deafening. Buckshot hit above my head so close some of it landed in my hair. I kip-upped while he stumbled backward trying to recover from the unexpected recoil. I sidestepped him as he brought the gun back down and knife handed his throat, grabbing the shotgun as I pulled my hand back. He wasn’t ready and the gun came out of his hands easily. I continued my momentum and spun, bringing my booted foot against the side of his head in a roundhouse that would have shattered wood. He flew sideways, instantly unconscious. I dropped the shotgun, brought up the M4, and fired once into his chest before moving on.
Anyone who came armed to this fight, came to kill. They didn’t deserve my sympathy. I just wished he wasn’t so damn young. I lost track of Bonfire as he moved behind one of the remaining piles of cash. Gaseous was halfway to the Army team and I had a guess they didn’t know how to deal with her. Like I do.
Something nagged at the back of my mind… like I was forgetting something. Then it hit me—a tree trunk slammed into my side. Ribs cracked and pain raced through me as I flew through the air like a tossed ball. Only my reflexes saved me as I hit the ground, rolling with the momentum to bleed off as much of the energy of the fall as I could.
I looked up groggily, grasping for the M4, but it was gone. Swamp-boy had an entire pickup truck above his head as he marched toward me. He was thirty feet away and from the way he struggled, I guessed that the truck was at the limit of his strength.
How the hell could I fight a living tree… I scrambled backward, trying to put my feet under me but nothing was working the way I wanted it to. All I could think about was how I would die here, and that my mission was done. Finished. Over. Like me. Everything I worked so hard for gone up in flames… Oh.
I pulled the Beretta Storm out, cocked it, took a heartbeat to aim, and fired. Three rounds, one right after the other, hit the gas tank under the truck, two on the bottom and one on the side to vent air. Gasoline poured down onto the living tree in heaps. He took two more steps before he noticed it.
The problem is, gasoline won’t ignite by shooting it. Maybe if I had tracer bullets burning with magnesium. I was just hoping he didn’t know that.
“Back off or I light it up,” I said over the cacophony of gunshots on the beach. He paused for a second, looking up at the truck spilling the flammable gas on him, then at me.
“I don’t think so.”
The high-powered rifle barked again, and a military grade tracer slammed into the back of Swamp-boy, the gasoline pouring down on him ignited immediately and he screamed, dropping the truck on his own head and folding like a card house.
I made a mental note to thank that sniper at a later date. The truck didn’t explode but it did burst into flames. I had a feeling the super was still alive, just knocked senseless—but he wouldn’t be out for long.
The regular shooters were dug in, expecting a rival gang, not the US military. The Army guys were dishing out the hurt. The only problem for them was that Gaseous had reached their invulnerable guy and was encircling him. From the way he dug at his eyes and throat I could tell she was killing him.
He was only twenty feet from the blown-up cash that was slowly turning into a blaze, sped up by the fact that Bonfire was next to it tossing fireballs and laughing maniacally as he did his best to burn the soldiers and anyone else who got in his way… except Gaseous. He carefully avoided hitting anywhere near her, just keeping the other three pinned while the ambush crept closer, trying to flank the Army team or dig in behind cover and outwait them.
I glanced back at the burning truck, then toward the dock and how close Bonfire was to the solid water construction.
That gave me a really bright idea. I ran toward the landing craft, my feet pounding the sand as hard as I could, while I made sure
there wasn’t anyone behind me. Halfway to the water I turned hard and ran right for Bonfire.
Everything Swamp-boy had done, suddenly vanished. The solid water dock splashed to the ground like a dropped fishbowl. A four-foot tall wave hit Bonfire with a sizzle as his flames were instantly extinguished by the overwhelming wave of water. I splashed through it, running as hard as I could as the water hit me. I ended up having to jump run to get through it.
As the water receded, steam rose up off of Bonfire. I could shoot him now but that would defeat the purpose. Instead I leaped at the last second, connecting with his lower back and slamming him forward—not as hard as I could have. I didn’t want to knock him down, just push him forward.
A bullet hit my arm and I grunted in pain as it bounced off my humerus. My right arm went instantly numb, causing me to drop the Beretta Storm. That was okay, though; I could do this one-handed. Gritting my teeth, I continued my assault, throwing punch after punch at the Asian man who had appeared under all that flame. He wasn’t used to hand-to-hand and I wasn’t trying to hurt him, just maneuver him.
After ten seconds of this, he smiled and held his hands out like they were torches.
“Now you burn,” he said.
“Close,” I replied. I did a forward snap kick with such speed he didn’t have time to react. My foot caught him in the chest, sending him back the final four steps just as he ignited his hands… while surrounded by gaseous vapor. I’ll take Fuel Air Bomb for the win, Alex.
Of course, I was standing ten feet away from them when she went off.
No one’s perfect.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Krisan tried to make out the chaotic mess that was the footage from the drones. She could tell there was gunfire, then the other ship just showed up out of nowhere and crashed into the beach and what seemed like hundreds of people jumped off and joined the fray. She chewed her lower lip in worry. Bill and his men were only here because she had told them about it. If they died here it would be her fault. Hers.
That thought didn’t sit well with her. She liked to believe everyone was a product of their own choices. Bill and his men had made theirs and she could no more be responsible for those than she could for Madi’s.
The feed was in black and white and ended when a massive white light lit up. With all the cloud cover the afternoon was on the dark side of things, but the giant fireball rising into the sky two miles distant was unmistakable. The feeds didn’t come back on after that.
She stood up and walked toward the edge of the boat, almost ready to step out and go after them… Then what? You’re a reporter not an action hero.
She resorted to doing what she always did when she worried—like she had done the entire night she waited for a husband who would never come home again—she paced. The boat wasn’t large enough for her to pace far, but she managed.
After fifteen minutes she’d worked up the courage to go after them, damn the consequences. Just as she stepped off the boat, five, no, six silent figures stepped out of the underbrush. Only five were walking.
Their resident super, Sandy, was half-naked and covered in suit, but he also carried a woman in his arms, the remains of a red scarf hung around her neck. Most of the front of her body was burned beyond recognition.
“Oh Madi, what did you do?”
***
“I trust we understand each other now?” Sara asked from beside me. Everything hurt so much I wanted to cry, but I had no eyelids to do so. Instead I just moaned. Krisan was with me, dabbing my face with a wet cloth, her own tears rolling down her face.
“No,” I said to Spice. She sat on the side of the boat letting one hand trail through the water, completely ignoring Krisan.
“I’m the only reason you’re still alive. I’m keeping your heart beating and the blood flowing through your veins. I can keep you in this state forever if I want,” she said, her hand snapping out of the water and pointing at me. The darkness on her face wasn’t my Spice—not even close.
Then it clicked. I wasn’t crazy. Joseph had left me a message and he had tried to warn me, to tell me on a hundred little occasions. He wasn’t the Wraith, this thing was, whatever it was. It was where the powers came from, and it needed something. But what?
Death? No… killing. The act of killing powers it.
Why does it need me, then?
Madi you do it because you have a long, long list of people who need killing. Joseph stopped, and so instead of feeding on his killing the Wraith fed on him.
“Listen, Spice,” I said through cracked lips. I badly needed a drink.
“Spice? Madi, it’s me, Krisan, can you hear me?”
“I’m not talking to you. One sec. Listen, Spice, I’ll make you a deal—”
“No. No deals. Joseph said the same thing but he grew tired of all the death. He lacked commitment,” she said.
If she could control me then she would, but she can’t. She’s a passenger.
“I have a lot of people that need killing. I can either do it my way, or I can strap on fifty pounds of C4, find the largest group of ISO around, and blow us all to hell. How’s that for commitment?” I asked.
“Madisun, you’re talking nonsense. Try to be quiet. We’re almost back in town and we can get you to a hospital,” Krisan said.
Spice’s eyes went wide and she examined me… really looked into my soul. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s my way or the graveyard—your choice,” I said. But she was already gone.
***
When I opened my eyes again I was curled up in the arms of the blond soldier who I had saved. He held me tight like a protective coat as he lay me down in the van. Strength returned to me along with awareness. Burned skin shed, bones mended, and I felt a rush as all the death and destruction I had wrought flooded through me. In the time it took me to sit-up, I was fully healed. Embarrassingly not as dressed as before the explosion, but my army jacket survived enough to cover me.
“Thank you… I have to go,” I said, even as the knowledge that these people knew who I was and that I should deal with them flooded through me. There was no going back as long as they lived. Stop it. I don’t know what influence you have over me, but we kill who I say we kill, and no one else.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “You saved me—saved all of us today. We owe you our thanks,” he said.
I shrugged. “You’re not one of the bad guys.”
“Madi?” Krisan said from behind as she climbed into the truck. I turned to her and glared. Of course she was here. I really did like the reporter, and I was grateful for her help in Detroit, but here…
Sliding past the invulnerable soldier, I dropped out of the van and looked around for my car. We were parked in the same town and I really needed to go before they asked too many questions.
A tall, square-jawed soldier of about forty came around the side of the van right behind Krisan.
“Madi, wait, these men are friends. They can help you,” Krisan said.
Now that I was out of the vehicle I could see all five men, including the sniper who had saved my life. I nodded to him. “Good shot,” I said.
“Clever idea,” he replied.
“Madi? I’m Master Sergeant Bill Farrel, US ARMY Criminal Investigations, Special Operations. I think we’re after the same thing,” Bill said.
“Oh, we are?” I asked raising an eyebrow. “They murdered your family and killed your little sister right in front of you while stabbing you through the heart?” I asked. I wanted to stay calm, but my emotions were getting the better of me. I didn’t want help, didn’t need help, and I certainly didn’t want Federal Agents who were susceptible to ISO-1’s corruption knowing anything about me.
Master Sergeant Farrel shook his head. “No ma’am, and for what it’s worth, I’m awful sorry about that,” he said with a whisper. The rest of his team took their hats off and bowed their heads in a show of respect. I had to admit, that wasn’t quite what I expected. A lifetime of mo
vies and TV shows had led me very astray about military men. Maybe I could…
That poor agent in New York wanted to do the right thing too, and they shot him through the heart for it.
“I appreciate that Sergeant, and thank you,” I said to the young man with the blond hair.
“Sandy,” he said touching his chest.
“Rico,” the dark-haired Hispanic man said.
“Zim,” the other nodded. He was taller than the rest, incredibly fit, with an angular face.
“Felix,” the sniper added. He didn’t move a muscle more than he needed too. The Wraith practically drooled in my mind. Now that I knew what she was, sort of, I could feel her more—distinguish her thoughts and desires from mine. Felix was a killer, like me. I could tell and so could she.
“Listen, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you saving my life, but you have no idea what you’re up against. There isn’t anyone they can’t corrupt; no government official they can’t blackmail, no law enforcement agency they can’t infiltrate. My only weapon is that they have no idea who I am, or even what I am. As long they’re afraid of me I can bring them down. The second they know who I am… that all ends.”
“You’re the Wraith,” Rico said. Was that awe in his voice?”
I nodded tightly. “Not the first one, but yes.”
He looked to the other men in the unit, meeting their eyes for a second. “She’s the real deal Bill,” he finally said.
“You think I need you to tell me that? I watched her operate, Rico…” he turned to me and smiled. “You would have made a helluva soldier, ma’am. If we can support you in any way, or if you find our missing C4, please let us know. I assume you can contact Ms. Swahili if you need to?” he asked.
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