by Layton Green
“Get us out of here,” Grey said, choking on his disappointment. Going any further was suicide. They didn’t even know for sure that Charlie was there.
“I’m thinking the lab area. It was the most deserted.”
“Fine.”
Just before Jax sped off, Grey heard a shrill cry of pain coming from the corridor labeled Security. He froze, his hand gripping the side of the seat, not quite believing what he had heard.
Another shriek, in the same voice.
The husky voice of a teenage girl.
Charlie.
“Go!” Grey yelled, smacking the dash.
Jax hit the accelerator. Twenty yards down the corridor, as a line of supercharged Segways sped in the opposite direction, Grey saw a familiar blond head dragging Charlie, kicking and screaming, towards a closed door.
Charlie was handcuffed and trying to dig in her heels. The man—Gunter—opened the door with one hand and smacked Charlie on the side of the head so hard she tumbled into the room. Gunter followed her inside and slammed the door.
Jax slammed to a stop. Grey had already vaulted out of the vehicle. He whipped the door open and saw Charlie lying on her stomach. Gunter had a foot on her back and was jerking on her cuffs.
The blond man turned at the sound of the door opening, just in time to catch an elbow to the face. Grey’s blow rocked him a few steps back, away from Charlie.
“Teach?”
Before Gunter could raise his hands in defense, Grey pounced on him, a snap kick to the groin and then an uppercut and a series of elbows to the head so fast and hard Gunter didn’t have time to react. Stunned and bloodied, he tried to cover up as he fell. Grey jumped on him and kept swinging, leveraging himself by leaning a knee on the prone man’s stomach. Gunter’s head thudded into the floor again and again as Grey rained down blows, over and over, until Jax caught his arm from behind.
“Easy, now. He’s gone.”
With a deep, shuddering breath, Grey pushed to his feet and wiped the blood off his knuckles. The blond man’s head lolled to the side, and Grey wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead.
Nor did he care.
He turned and saw Charlie staring at the neo-Nazi’s prone form. The uneasy shock in her eyes made Grey feel ashamed. He shouldn’t have lost control in front of her.
Charlie’s eyes hardened, and after Grey found a key on Gunter and unlocked her cuffs, she threw herself into Grey’s arms. He hugged her fiercely in return, pressing her head tight against his chest, then held her at arm’s length. Her face was badly bruised, one eye swollen shut. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“Hell yes,” she said, after a series of wracking coughs. “I’ll run on hot coals to China to get out of this dump.”
Grey turned to Jax. “The golf cart?”
“Will she fit?”
Grey slipped outside, laid the two assault rifles on the front floor of the golf cart, and opened the storage compartment. Jax jumped into the driver’s seat as Grey helped Charlie squeeze inside. It was an extremely tight fit, but she hugged her knees and tucked her head. It wouldn’t close all the way, but the cracked lid gave her some air.
Grey still thought their best option was to hide out somewhere, wait for the chaos to calm down, and make a break for it. Maybe they could follow the river to another exit point.
Before Jax had a chance to drive away, a group of Segways approached, led by a familiar face. Emil. Grey tried to turn away, but the long-haired Icelander had already recognized him. As Emil shouted a series of commands to the men behind him, Grey picked up one of the assault rifles and unleashed a volley of automatic fire. The rounds knocked Emil off his Segway, and the others jumped off and hugged the ground.
It bought them a few seconds, but Grey had no plan. As Jax flew past the next intersection, Grey saw a huge, red-bearded man speeding towards them in a golf cart, leading the charge from one of the intersecting corridors.
Grey fired. Dag swerved and kept driving.
“Any ideas?” Jax shouted, as they entered the main cavern. Grey estimated three dozen guards filled the room. The siren was still blaring and must have covered the gunshots, because the guards paid them no attention.
Grey tried to think through the surge of adrenaline. They no longer had the option to hide. He knew of only one exit, and as soon as Dag arrived and blew their cover, they would be swarmed.
“Take Charlie and go for the snow bikes,” he said, forcing away thoughts of failure. Not for himself, because he had known the risks when he entered the compound, but for Charlie.
“What?” Jax said.
“She can ride well enough to get started. When the door lifts, drive the hell out of here. I’ll join you if I can.”
“If you can? Where are you going?”
“To raise the door. Just do it, man!”
As they entered the main cavern, full of vehicles and bright lights and swarming guards, Grey gripped the assault rifle and jumped out of the golf cart. Walking swiftly and with confidence, he strode towards the button that controlled the door.
Fifty feet from the entrance. Plenty of people carried similar assault rifles, though a few started to eye him with suspicion. In the corner of his eye, Grey saw Jax heading for the snow bikes. He had a clear path.
Grey heard shouting behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Dag whisking into the grotto on his golf cart, flanked by a dozen men. He spotted Jax first and pointed him out.
“Take him!” Dag roared.
Chaos erupted. As Jax laid down a burst of cover fire and dove behind a Superjeep, letting the golf cart smack into a wall with Charlie still concealed inside, Grey sprinted for the button. Dag noticed him and yelled again.
Too soon, Grey knew. Dag saw us too soon.
A guard by the door leveled his weapon. Grey shot first and dropped him. Grey was steps away from the button. Without looking behind him, he threw himself forward, arm outstretched, and pressed the white sphere as a volley of gunfire peppered the wall above his head.
A familiar click of gears.
The ice door began to lift.
Grey scrambled behind a golf cart, braced the rifle against his shoulder as he turned, and sprayed gunfire over the seat. Return fire thunked into the vehicle, shredding the vinyl and blowing the tires.
He glanced to his left. A crowd of men hovered near the spot where Jax had taken cover, but the mercenary had deployed a smoke bomb and obscured the area. Automatic fire went back and forth, and Grey had no way to tell what was happening or if Charlie was safe. He couldn’t do much of anything except hunker behind his golf cart and try to keep the approaching mob at bay. Left without a vehicle, Grey harbored no illusions of escaping. He would do what he could to help Jax and Charlie survive.
The door was a quarter of the way up. An inch of snow covered the ground, and more was falling. Dag and his men employed military tactics to advance on Grey, using the vehicles as shields, covering each other as they advanced. Grey estimated he had about five seconds before they overran him. At least a hundred men crowded the cavern.
Sirens wailed as the door continued to open. The stench of gunpowder fouled the air. Grey scanned the room, desperate. A dead guard clutched a rifle ten feet from Grey’s position. He tried to scramble on his belly to pick it up, but someone saw him edge forward, and a burst of gunfire drove him back.
He was pinned.
Sensing victory, Dag ordered his men to rush Grey’s position. Grey had room to dart under the door, but he would be exposed, shot dead in an instant. He gripped the ammo-less rifle and prepared to use it as a club, knowing it was futile.
Lying flat on his belly, he saw the booted feet of Dag’s men surrounding the jeep. Just before they rushed him, two huge explosions rocked the middle of the cavern, followed by the high-pitched revs of a pair of motorcycle engines.
Screams and dense smoke filled the air. In the confusion, two snow bikes roared under the door and out of the grotto, one of them darting forward in a straight
line and the other wobbling and almost pitching over before righting itself. Grey saw Charlie clutching the second bike with a white-knuckled grip. He willed her to stay upright.
Dag’s men were still advancing. Grey decided to take a chance. He would rather be shot than captured by Dag. After flinging his rifle at the closest man, he darted through the entrance, head low, weaving from side to side and trying to escape in the confusion. A bullet whizzed by his head and another grazed his arm. Just when he was most exposed, certain a bullet would catch him in the back, Jax wheeled his bike around and laid down a volley of cover fire.
“Go!” Grey screamed. “Stay with her!”
They both ignored him. Charlie realized what was happening and stopped a dozen yards past Jax. As the mercenary sprayed the entrance with bullets, hiding behind his bike from the return fire, Grey sprinted with everything he had and jumped on the back of Charlie’s motorcycle. A bullet plunked into her windshield, spider-webbing the glass.
As soon as Charlie and Grey drove off, Jax shot past them, veering into the lava rock field instead of taking the road. Smart move, Grey thought. It put them out of sight of the entrance for a second. Plus, the airfield was directly across the field, much closer as the crow flies than circling around on the main road. Grey could already see jeeps headed their way in the distance. Dag must have called ahead.
There was another factor. Grey heard the steady thump of a helicopter approaching in the distance, swooping towards the airfield. It might belong to W.A.R., or it could be Jax’s extraction plan in play.
They had to reach the airfield to find out.
Shouts and the sounds of revving engines sounded behind them. Charlie accelerated, ramped the curb into the lava field, hit a jagged rock less than fifty yards in, and crashed the bike.
Grey did his best to curl his body to absorb the impact. He landed in a patch of spongy moss that helped cushion the fall. “Back on!” he yelled, struggling to his feet and praying Charlie hadn’t hit her head. “Behind me!”
He picked up the bike as Charlie lurched to a standing position, dazed, her face scratched and bleeding. A spray of bullets spackled the rocks around them. Grey risked a glance back and saw an army of vehicles leaving the cavern. W.A.R.’s red-bearded leader was at the vanguard, bearing down on them atop a snow bike.
“Charlie!”
Dag raised his weapon. Charlie hobbled closer, and Grey helped her climb on the bike. A bullet struck a boulder beside them. Reaching a hand back to help steady Charlie, Grey cranked his wrist and shot forward, accelerating as fast as the bike would allow. She clutched his waist, and they barely hung on as he careened around a boulder the size of a car.
The lava field was akin to the world’s hardest slalom course, a maze of narrow and insanely twisty paths weaving through a sea of moss-covered mounds and chest-high rock formations. All of it jagged. All of it unfamiliar terrain. Grey went as fast as he dared, making sure to speed through the stretches that exposed them to gunfire, even though he risked flipping the bike.
The terrain helped shield them from snipers, though constant bursts of gunfire popped in the air behind them. Grey kept his head low and concentrated on keeping the bike upright. He knew he could ride.
But so could Dag.
Grey’s glances in the rearview told him that half of the men chasing them had already crashed their bikes, and that everyone except Dag had fallen behind. The big man took as many risks as Grey, ramping rock formations and leaning so far over on the curves his knees brushed the ground. The ride was far too treacherous to risk a shot, but unlike Grey, Dag wasn’t weighed down by a second rider.
“He’s gaining, Teach!”
The helicopter whipped closer. Jax’s bike came in and out of view, and had almost reached the airfield. The vehicles on the main road had turned around and were racing to cut them off.
“When we hit the next blind curve,” Grey said over the roar of the engine, glancing back and seeing Dag less than twenty yards behind them, “I’m leaving you.”
“Say what?”
“Scoot up on the bike and make sure you’ve got the bars before I jump. Don’t go too fast, no one’s going to catch you.”
“Don’t do it, Teach.” Grey could hear the fear in her voice. “Let’s stay together.”
“Dag’s too close. We won’t make it. You can do this, Charlie. I think that copter’s ours. Jax will help you. I’ll be right behind.”
“Teach—”
Grey didn’t give her time to finish. On the next curve, once they were out of sight, he slowed and scooted to the front of the bike, then stood and crouched on the balls of his feet.
“Take it!” he ordered.
Charlie edged forward. As soon as he saw her hands grasp the handlebars, he dove off, protecting his vitals as he crashed into a mossy mound. He thought he might have cracked a rib, but he grunted through the pain and scampered to the other side, wincing as Charlie wobbled and then gained control of the bike.
Not a second later, Dag came flying by. Grey leapt at him and just managed to grab his coat. The maneuver sent Dag and Grey crashing into another mound, the heavy bike spinning to the ground ahead of them.
Dazed by the collision, both men stumbled to their feet. Dag’s gun had landed in the snow twenty feet away, across a jagged field of lava rock. Dag eyed it and knew he wouldn’t reach it in time. He drew a long, serrated knife instead.
Behind him, Grey heard the whine of approaching bikes. Moments away. He had no choice but to try to end this fast.
Grey stalked forward and feinted a low kick. The bigger man bladed his body to the side, then lashed out with the knife. Fast and careful, not overextending. After another feint to judge Dag’s defenses, Grey attacked fast and hard. Eyes locked onto the knife, following its every movement, he darted forward with his hands up, closing the distance and forcing Dag to react.
As soon as the red-bearded leader brought the knife up to thwart Grey’s attack, Grey crossed his hands in an X and latched onto Dag’s wrist. Grey stopped the knife at chest-height, locking it into place and bringing the two men almost nose-to-nose.
Dag tried to use his superior strength to free his weapon and throw Grey to the side. When Dag twisted, Grey went with the movement, bending in the same direction and using his opponent’s own wrist for support. At the same time, Grey kicked him as hard as he could on the side of the foot, trying for a sweep and missing.
Dag stumbled but didn’t fall. Grey’s failed maneuver flowed right into his next. Once he felt his opponent’s weight shift, Grey jerked backwards to keep him unbalanced, threw a snap kick to the groin to distract him, and flipped Dag’s vulnerable wrist over, the one still holding the knife.
Surprising Grey with his agility, Dag flipped to avoid the wrist break, but ended up on his back on the snow. The knife fell at Grey’s feet. Dag struggled to get up, but Grey kept him down by shoving a hand in his face and thrusting a knee on his chest. Grey’s fingers moved lower, digging into the mandibular pressure points on either side of Dag’s jaw.
The roar of the closest bikes pounded in Grey’s ears. Too close for Grey to kill Dag and get back on the bike and escape.
“You do realize you came out here for nothing,” Dag said.
Grey picked up the knife with his free hand.
“Don’t believe me?” Dag’s sinister laugh sent a chill down Grey’s spine. The Icelander knew what was coming, and showed no fear. “Check your piglet’s nails in the morning. They might need a good clipping.”
Grey applied the pressure points so hard that Dag gagged and his eyes bulged. Grey raised the knife and pressed it against his cheek.
“Do it,” Dag said, through clenched teeth.
“I’d love to, believe me. But I need a distraction.”
The W.A.R. leader struggled as Grey stared into his eyes, owning him as he slowly drew the knife across his jugular. He cut deep enough so Dag would bleed out, but not so deep he would die in seconds.
Dag gasped
and flopped like a suffocating fish as Grey pushed to his feet on the blood-stained snow. Shots peppered the ground. He raced to retrieve the assault rifle and then jumped on Dag’s bike as the first rider came into view. The crushed front fender worried Grey, but the bike started right up.
Grey and the first rider exchanged gunfire, but as Grey weaved the bike and sped away, he glanced in the rearview and noticed the soldier stopping to attend to Dag, buying Grey the time he needed.
A quarter mile away, the helicopter descended on the airfield as a line of jeeps approached from the settlement. Charlie was waving frantically at Grey while Jax faced the approaching vehicles, laying down cover fire. He ran out of ammo and pulled Charlie towards the copter.
Grey didn’t know if they would make it. He held the assault rifle in one hand and the right side of the handlebars in the other, taking risks on the uneven terrain. He cut off a few dozen yards by ramping off a flattened boulder, almost losing control when he hit the ground. He straightened out, swerved to avoid a series of obstacles, and passed a dead guard beside a mound with a hinged door flapping open. Jax must have got him.
Grey whipped into the airfield. He took the bike so fast on the straightaway the cold air brought tears to his eyes, right before he slammed on the brakes in front of the hovering copter. A ladder lowered from twenty feet up.
Bullets rained in from the approaching jeeps, smacking the ground ahead of them, just out of range. Grey fired back to slow them.
“Get her in!” he shouted.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie and Jax climb the ladder and disappear inside the copter. Grey followed behind, dropping the gun once the ammo ran out. The copter started to ascend with Grey still on the ladder. Bullets whisked through the air beside him. One tore through the side of his shirt, another riffled his hair. He clutched the ladder as the wind and motion rocked him side to side. Fingers trembling from the strain, his eyes gummy from wind and cold, he finally got high enough for Jax to reach a hand out and pull him up. Grey dove inside the copter just as a pair of bullets thunked into the metal side.
The pilot took them higher, out of reach. After slapping Grey on the back, Jax let out his tension with an exultant yell. “Damn, I thought I was extreme.”
