The Darwin Protocol: A Thriller (The Last Peak Book 1)

by William Oday

  Then the desk shuttered as bullets pounded into it. The whole thing shook and shivered but no rounds made it through. At least they had that.

  The wood inches from his face exploded outward, peppering him with splinters. He fell back and landed hard on the harder floor.

  “Get it out! Out!”

  “You sure, Jefe?”

  “Now!” Cesar said, and then screamed as somebody tore the glass dagger free.

  “I’m gonna put a bullet through your teeth! And then one through that puta’s chest. I’m gonna rip your hearts out.”

  Elio had no doubt he’d do exactly that if given the chance. So he crawled forward and pushed his pistol around the corner and squeezed the trigger, determined not to give him the chance.

  The hammer clicked and nothing happened.

  He yanked the bolt back and saw the chamber was empty.

  They were screwed now.

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  Mason jumped back away from the interior column of the stairwell when the report of a shotgun sounded. Then another.

  They were close now. On the floor above. He held his Glock out and up, ready to squeeze rounds into any threat that entered his field of fire.

  He continued up, slicing the view of the staircase above as he went.

  An automatic burst of fire echoed down the hall and he froze at the landing to the 60th floor. Dust and smoke wafted into the stairwell.

  This was it.

  One of those events with consequences that rippled onward through time. The crests so high, sometimes, they could drown you.

  The sharp cracks of rifle fire stabbed his eardrums.

  Shouting voices and then a scream.

  A scream he recognized.

  Theresa’s.

  He rounded into the hall with his pistol ready and his heart jumped into his throat. Cold fear clenched his gut. Not for himself, but for his daughter.

  Theresa was held by some huge thug. Drifting smoke parted and Mason recognized Cesar.

  He should’ve put him in the ground that morning. To hell with the legal repercussions. To hell with the dubious morality.

  He’d put his daughter in danger. His motivations had been golden. Getting Elio out of a fix was holding to a promise that had few equals in his life. It was simply life. Sometimes your best call turned out bad.

  Mason drew a bead on Cesar’s head, preparing a kill shot.

  Theresa jerked in Cesar’s grasp and she pushed into his sight picture. He needed a little more separation to be sure.

  “Don’t fucking move!” he yelled.

  Theresa saw him.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  Cesar pivoted her toward him, using her as body armor. The lowlife.

  He longed to release a barrage into Cesar’s chest, but had no angle for it.

  Cesar’s pistol came up and kicked to life.

  Mason ducked back into cover as lead thundered into the stairwell’s far wall.

  The firing stopped and he peeked out just as Cesar pulled his daughter into an office.

  He scanned the approach and saw he’d have zero cover once he committed. It didn’t matter. He set off in a low crouch, his front sight glued to the empty doorway.

  “Go!” someone said and he stopped as a storm of gunfire erupted. All inside the office.

  All in close proximity to Theresa.

  Blind panic chewed at the edges of his brain. Echoes of past loss dulled his thinking.

  He breathed hard and grounded his focus. Looking left and right as he passed closed doors. Ready to pivot in case any of them held a lethal surprise.

  The walls wavered and existed in two places at once. Like a double exposure. Walls from a distant place and time. Thick walls made of clay and stone. White-washed walls dulled brown by layers of dust and debris.

  A head that wasn’t Theresa’s appeared in the doorway. It pulled back as his pistol blasted two rounds in the empty space it had just occupied.

  The head was familiar though. Hadn’t he seen it…

  When?

  A memory that he daily fought to keep locked away broke free. A melancholy madness gripped him.

  Cold sweat dripped down his forehead and ran into his eyes, blurring the world more than it already was.

  A weight pressed into his chest. A tightness he dismissed as the heavy ceramic plate in the Interceptor body armor that had become almost like a second skin in Fallujah.

  Mason blinked hard, trying to clear his mind.

  Fallujah happened long ago. He’d buried those memories.

  Buried them a thousand times.

  But they always rose to haunt him.

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  November 2004

  Fallujah, Iraq

  Mason didn’t have the patience to deal with a row right now. But he also had no desire to drop the hammer on his men either.

  Miro smacked Lopes on the helmet.

  “Don’t put that voodoo on Lucky!”

  Lopes spit a glob of brown juice on Miro’s boot.

  “I don’t make the news. I just report it.”

  Miro examined his boot.

  Mason waited for it. Now was not the time for these two to tangle.

  Miro looked back up and grinned.

  “Thank God. I think your chaw spit washed some brains off my toe.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Now was not the time for their comedy routine.

  “Great. I’m happy you’re bosom buddies again. Can we got on with our jobs now?”

  “Yes, sir, Sergeant West,” Miro said in clipped tones. He always used Mason’s full rank and last name when he was irritated.

  Good. Irritation kept you on edge. Kept your senses awake.

  “Check that room,” Mason said, pointing to the doorway that the muj had entered from.

  The team cleared a sizable kitchen with no further surprises. They headed back to the foyer and stacked up on the door to the right. Door number two. Still avoiding door number three. The horror show door.

  Nobody was in a hurry for that one.

  Door number two was locked and a number of stiff kicks from Channing didn’t faze it. So he blew it open with a couple shots with the twelve gauge. As soon as the door crashed open, they knew they’d hit a new record.

  It was the arms cache of arms caches. This house must’ve been a muj headquarters. There was all the usual stuff, only way more of it: endless piles of ammo cans, AK-47s, RPKs, Dragunov sniper rifles, RPG rounds, drugs. Tubs full of drugs. But this one had a few things they hadn’t seen before. A few things that chilled them to the bone.

  Stacks of American military cammies. American Kevlar helmets. Body armor vests no different than the ones they wore. M16 and M4 rifles. Night vision goggles. Half the stuff there looked like gear straight from their own supply depot.

  If the muj wanted to set up a deadly ambush posing as friendlies, they had everything they needed right here.

  That would’ve set a new record for crazy. But that wasn’t it.

  The tables covered with gear also had something else they’d never seen before, not in all of the hundreds of houses they’d cleared.

  Computers. Five networked laptops. Two metal filing cabinets.

  “Jesus,” Mason muttered.

  Lopes crossed his heart.

  “He had nothing to do with this.”

  Miro opened a filing cabinet and leafed through stacks of paper.

  “Senior brass are gonna cream their pants.”

  “Channing, get on the hook. We need EOD and intel teams on this one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mason waited to confirm explosive ordinance disposal and intel units were en route and then posted two men to guard the treasure trove. He pulled the remaining men back into the foyer.

  He looked at door number three and chewed skin from his lip. The swollen half of his face burned. It was past due for another painful cleansing. His right eye was useless.

  One good eye, viewing the
world lit by headache-inducing night vision goggles. He wondered for half a second why he voluntarily signed up for this Bravo Sierra. He could be at home eating pizza and knocking back beers. Taking Theresa to an LA Galaxy game. Spending a weekend in bed with his wife. Swimming in the bracing waters of the Pacific Ocean.

  He pushed the thoughts aside. They had no place here. The door in front of him was another barrier between him and that future. Overcome it and he’d be another step closer to home.

  Mason squeezed his left eye shut. The right one already was. He had to pull it together. This door was just like all the others. A deadly game of Russian Roulette. The losers didn’t get another chance. The winners faced another turn of the barrel.

  Home.

  Family. His wife and daughter.

  So many Marines would never return. So many others would make it back in pieces.

  Mason wondered if he was going crazy. His mind fought against his attempts to reel it in. To get it locked down.

  “Sarge?”

  Lopes was at his shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  Mason looked at his best friend. All he wanted in the world was for Lopes to make it home. For all of his men to make it through this. He studied each of their faces. They were spooked. He had to get his shit together. They looked to him for strength. For guidance.

  He buttoned down the whirlpool in his brain and locked it up tight.

  “Fine,” Mason said. “Stack up! Let’s go!”

  Lucky jumped to the front. The kid was all balls. Channing came around and turned the door knob. He pushed and it slowly swung open without a sound.

  Mason’s jaws clenched tight. The muscles ached from overuse. He was so sick of long, dark hallways.

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  This corridor was different than most. Usually a hallway was a passage leading to rooms on either side. A simple practicality of architecture that gave easy access to other areas. This one didn’t follow that paradigm.

  There was only one door. At the end. Ten meters away. The entire corridor was painted in the creepy, flat black. The door at the end included. The walls were also painted with something much more horrifying. Handprints streaked the surfaces in crusted reds and browns. Other less recognizable smears added to the story of untold suffering.

  Mason’s danger sense raged like a five-alarm fire. It was a tunnel of terror. Silent testimony to the worst that mankind could dredge from their bestial natures.

  They crept down the hall, senses attuned to anything that might be a threat. The only sound was their own breathing and the shuffle of their boots over a floor littered with discarded clothing and rags.

  Lopes picked something up off the ground and studied it. A filthy t-shirt. Kid-sized. Brown stains splattered across the front. He dropped it and kicked it away.

  They came to the end of the hallway and were surprised to find a blind corner to the right with a passage hardly wider than a man.

  Lucky stopped on the near side at the corner.

  Mason didn’t like it. He wasn’t going to send a Marine into that unknown. He was about to order them to prep it with a frag when the door at the end of the hall swung open.

  The darkness flared with a blinding burst of automatic gunfire.

  Bullets snapped down the corridor. One zipped by Mason’s ear so close it seared the delicate skin. Tracer rounds streaked through the air like lethal lasers.

  Channing shoved Lucky to the ground and rushed the unknown target, his rifle banging away. His body jerked as an enemy bullet hit.

  Mason knew Channing couldn’t last. It was a miracle he wasn’t already cut to pieces. He rushed forward as Channing slumped to the ground, crossed the dark passage to the right, and barreled into the room with his rifle blazing. Something yanked his boot back and he crashed to the ground. Rounds zipped through the air two feet above his head.

  He twisted around and saw a muj not twenty feet away, tucked in tight behind a concrete barrier. His crazed eyes illuminated by the muzzle flash of the roaring machine gun in his hands. Mason prepped a frag and tossed it over the barrier.

  The blast vaporized the insurgent and nearly killed Mason as well. Shrapnel hits in his hands and face stung like a colony of fire ants had been dumped on his head. His one good eye saw a blurred world that refused to come into focus.

  Flickering orange hues lit the room. The frag had ignited some of the debris on the floor. The flames quickly spread, pushed on by the desiccated rags.

  Mason tried to stand and fell back to the floor. His right foot wouldn’t work. The heel of his boot was soaked in red. Strangely, it didn’t hurt yet.

  He crawled over to Channing by the doorway. His demolitions expert lay there with a hand clutched over his chest. Mason peeked at the wound and grimaced. The shoulder and collarbone was a shattered ruin of bone and blood.

  Lucky crawled toward them and another fusillade of fire erupted. This time from the dark passage now to Mason’s left. Lucky fell back toward the rest of the squad and managed to avoid taking a hit.

  Channing grabbed Mason’s vest.

  “I don’t wanna die, Sarge,” Channing said in a terrified voice. “Please.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  A voice floated around the corner, out of the black depths of the narrow passage.

  “Please, don’t want die.”

  A thick Arabic accented voice mocked Channing’s plea for life.

  “Don’t want die,” it said again in a taunting tone, followed by a guttural laugh. “Alsh Shayatin al’ amrikia.”

  Rage boiled in Mason’s gut. A dark malignance burned through his brain. He’d rip the torturer’s intestines out with his teeth. Cave in his skull and devour his brains while the light faded from his eyes.

  “Please, Sarge,” Channing said with a fading voice.

  Channing needed immediate evac, but they were pinned down. Another cascade of fire blasted across the hall. So thick it was like a solid, wavering sheet of death.

  There was no way they’d get through it.

  The onslaught ignited more of the cloth and debris in the hallway. Lucky stamped on a burning pile and only managed to send glowing sparks into surrounding piles that also caught.

  The gunfire stopped.

  Mason pushed up his NVGs. The growing fire lit up the entire corridor.

  The men across the impassable chasm turned sideways, clearing a path. Lopes was back by the entrance. Orange flames licked up the walls. Black smoke curled and thickened on the ceiling.

  Lopes took off at a dead sprint toward them. Faster than he had any right to be, he sailed across the passage and gunfire exploded, just missing him. He scrambled to Mason’s side.

  “Get Channing outta here. Get everyone out. This place is gonna burn down on our heads.”

  “Sarge, your foot doesn’t look so good,” he replied.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll make it.”

  Lopes didn’t move.

  “Get him out. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Lopes nodded. He pulled Channing to his feet, carrying almost all of the injured soldier’s weight.

  “I’ll cover you. Go when I fire.”

  Mason crawled to the edge of the doorway and pulled himself up. Flames licked up the walls. The debris on the floor crackled glowing yellow. An impenetrable layer of dark smoke obscured the ceiling.

  “Don’t stop. I’m on your six.”

  Mason poked his barrel around the corner. He nodded at Lopes and then hammered away into the narrow passage.

  Lopes dove across the opening with Channing by his side. Lucky caught them on the other side and helped carry their wounded brother down the hall.

  Bits of flaming debris swirled in the smoke like fireflies in the night sky.

  Mason blinked his eye and tried to pull the two versions of the hall into one. He put weight on his numb right foot and collapsed to the floor.

  “Death comes for you, al’ amriki. Allahu akbar.”

  Mason
didn’t care. He wanted only one thing. To kill the man behind the voice. He crawled toward the doorway.

  A section of burning ceiling crashed to the ground, blasting a searing wave of heat at him.

  He rolled back, shielding his face. Lying on his back, staring into hell. He breathed in and convulsed as the superheated smoke seared his lungs.

  “Death is here, al’ amriki.”

  Acid rage burned his insides even more than the toxic air. Black hate boiled over in his brain. He would kill. He would take life before conceding his own.

  “Fuck you! I am death! I am coming!”

  Out of the blurred, swirling smoke and crackling flames, a dark form appeared.

  The enemy.

  Mason unleashed his rage. He emptied a magazine into the shadow that had come to claim him. Every bullet delivered his vicious intent. He screamed death as he gave it.

  The form collapsed.

  The body fell forward on top of him.

  Mason rolled to the side and the body tumbled off. The head smacked the floor next to his own. The face of a dying man inches away.

  “Remember your promise, Sarge.”

  Lopes blew a last breath across Mason’s face and his eyes went dim.

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  The Last Day

  Los Angeles, California

  Mason doubled over, the decades old anguish a ragged knife tearing his bowels out. He pitched to the side and slammed into the wall.

  He could never take back what happened. He’d die a thousand times over if just one would take Lopes’ place.

  A black void beckoned. Promised him a welcoming numb if only he’d let go. If only he’d take one step off the cliff.

  The promise of oblivion rang false though. He’d drowned in it years ago. Almost given up his wife and daughter to it. The only things that mattered anymore.

  He’d drowned himself in drink for those two dark years. He’d only reached for life after dying below the black waves. Died and then peered up through the warbling surface to see what he was choosing to leave behind.