The Journey of Kyle Gibbs Box Set

by Wayne Marinovich

  He glanced up at the window and caught his breath. The very man he was hunting was sitting at the window looking out. How easy it would be to lift his AK-47 and kill him there and then.

  ‘René, it’s Chilemba,’ he whispered into the satphone Gabrjel had given him.

  ‘What is it, Chilemba?’

  ‘I am in position near the side door. I could be inside the building in seconds.’

  ‘Vargen said to hold off until we have neutralised the new GGC team.’

  Chilemba cursed under his breath as he cast a glance up at the first-floor window again. His man had disappeared.

  • • •

  The green images of figures in the night vision binoculars flashed white now and then as one of the resistance men let loose a burst of machine gun fire. Next to Gibbs, the sharp retort of Killey’s sniper rifle reverberated around the room as he focussed on Markus’s men.

  ‘Killey looks like they’ve realised that they are surrounded and are trying to pull back. If I know that mad German, he will regroup and then come back even harder. Go downstairs and get all the men to barricade as many of the exits as they can and then join us upstairs. We’ll make one of the two sides fight their way up here to get to the professor,’ Gibbs said.

  Every battle had a turning point, and Gibbs had a feeling it was coming soon.

  Chapter 49

  Blonie, Poland - 2028

  Chilemba shivered a little as he hunkered under the edges of three large bushes. The cold of Europe was taking getting used to. He’d seen his first frost the day before and had marvelled at the spectacle of water freezing on the plants and leaves. The vibration of his satphone in his pocket distracted his gaze from the side door, and he slowly reached for it, not wanting the movement to attract any unwanted attention.

  ‘Chilemba, the second GGC team has pulled back down the street, so we are to focus on the town hall. Vargen has instructed us to go in. We will create a diversion, and you slip in when you see an opportunity,’ René said.

  Chilemba smiled.

  Twenty minutes later, he heard the scraping of a deadbolt on the side door, and yellow light streamed out into the night as it swung open.

  In one fluid motion, he stood up and ripped a stun grenade from his chest webbing. Taking a step forward and threw the grenade with the force of a Kenyan spear thrower. The grenade bounced off the angled open door and disappeared into the room. A massive explosion of light emanated from the doorway, and he sprinted across to the door, kicking it open even further.

  He pulled his scarf up over his nose and mouth to help dull the effects of the acrid smoke and fired at the stunned GGC men who were kneeling on the floor. Chilemba stepped over their bodies and moved into the kitchen, his AK47 raised out in front of him. He knew by now the alarm would have been raised, and the GGC men would soon be moving towards him. Another huge explosion went off in front of the building, and he heard his resistance comrades firing at the front door, so he hurried through the kitchen and into an old dining hall.

  • • •

  ‘Shredder, we’re in control of the upstairs area, let’s make a quick sweep to see if any men are left downstairs. You take the main stairwell and check the front, and I will take the back spiral stairwell.’

  Gibbs slowly walked down the spiralling stone stairs. Stopping when he heard the shattering of glass on a stone floor, he raised his weapon as a massive explosion went off somewhere near the main door. A few seconds later the armed figure of a resistance fighter ran up the stairs. He fired a quick burst at Gibbs, who had already dropped down to his right, and then a clunk resonated in the stairwell as the fighter’s weapon jammed. Panic filled his eyes as he repeatedly struggled to eject the jammed round.

  Gibbs ran down and smashed the butt of his SA80 into the man’s forehead, sending him to his knees, and against the stairwell wall.

  Gibbs heard more footsteps coming up the lower levels, so he fired another burst down the stairwell, then managed to reach an open door leading off a small landing, into the dining room.

  He rushed in and looked up to see a surprised dreadlocked African walking towards him from the other side of the room. Chilemba Wangai fired at Gibbs, who twisted instinctively and dived behind the large dining room table. It took him a split second to realise that he had been hit in the neck as the pain radiated outwards. He raised his machine gun over the top of the table and fired. It recoiled twice, then, with a nauseating click, nothing happened.

  • • •

  Gibbs looked down at the blood on his fingers and realised that he had sustained a flesh wound. He looked to his right, amongst the clutter of chair and table legs, to see the other fighter treading slowly towards his own extended feet. He took a deep breath, expecting agonising pain as his opponent filled his legs with lead. A click of emptiness from the AK47 echoed in the room.

  ‘Come out and die like a man so that I can avenge the death of my brother,’ Chilemba screamed. ‘You’re going to pay for the man you murdered in cold blood.’

  Gibbs stood up and saw the sneering man approaching him, with the long silver blade of his machete out in front of him. Gibbs clenched his teeth and reached behind him for the handle of his hunting knife.

  ‘I have not murdered anyone, my friend, let alone your bloody brother.’

  Chilemba lunged forward to stab the GGC captain, who quickly deflected the machete with his knife hand and swivelled out of the way of the charging man.

  ‘I saw you stand over him and shoot him in the head while he was still on his knees,’ Chilemba shouted and rushed at Gibbs.

  Gibbs swivelled to avoid another thrust of the long sharp blade, knocking Chilemba’s elbow aside and changing his point of balance. He couldn’t avoid the headbutt as the tall man from Africa swung his head at Gibbs and almost knocked him senseless. Gibbs staggered back, swiping his knife over the forearm of his attacker, who let out a moan as the razor-sharp hunting knife slipped through muscle and flesh.

  Chilemba’s jaw muscled clenched as fought the pain and he flipped the machete to the other hand. ‘I can avenge his death with the other hand too, Captain Gibbs.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with that,’ Gibbs said and blinked a few times, trying to clear his head.

  ‘Liar!’ screamed Chilemba and attacked again with the machete above his head. He brought it down with all his might, and Gibbs just managed to sway his head out of the way. The blade hit him on the collarbone, and he let out a groan of pain, as it split his shirt and skin open. Chilemba head-butted the moaning captain in the face again and sent him reeling backwards against the table.

  Gibbs mustered more strength from somewhere and punched the tall man in the face with a massive left hook. The cartilage collapsed under the force of his fist, and the African stopped in his tracks. Gibbs grabbed hold of Chilemba and kneed him in his stomach, forcing the breath out of him. Jumping back, Gibbs then brought his blade in towards Chilemba’s stomach, but he was able to turn and deflect the blow away.

  Gibbs shoved Chilemba away, and they started to circle each other again, breathing heavily and bleeding from each other’s weapons. Absolute focused aggression, like an invisible beam, locked the circling men’s eyes, blinding them to the entrance of heavily armed resistance fighters. A few of them slipped past the fighting men and covered all the exits to the room.

  Both men pounced at the same time and locked arms like ancient Greek wrestlers. They pushed and swivelled, neither willing to yield, then suddenly Gibbs deliberately stopped pushing, and with the big shift in balance, Chilemba shoved them over. Both men fell to the ground, and Chilemba let out a loud moan. Gibbs felt the fight go out of the African.

  He rolled off the captain and looked down at the knife’s handle sticking out of his stomach. In a reflex movement, he pulled the blade out of his gut, howling with pain. Gibbs jumped up and made a lunge for the machete still in Chilemba’s hand.

  Dozens of hands pulled him back as he screamed to get at the man trying to kill h
im. A loud burst of machine gun fire into the ceiling drowned out his scream, and silence descended over the room as bits of ceiling plaster rained down on them.

  Chapter 50

  Blonie, Poland - 2028

  A female voice broke the silence. ‘Chilemba, Captain Markus Schmidt executed your friend in Givet, not Captain Gibbs.’

  Gibbs shook his head trying to clear the fogginess after the head-butted from the tall African. The voice was so familiar, in his mangled mind, it sounded as smooth as liquid honey. Through bleary eyes he looked across, and saw a woman in army fatigues, walking over to the injured Chilemba.

  ‘Medic, get in here,’ she shouted, kneeling next to Chilemba.

  A young looking medic with two large green canvas medical bags ran up to them, knelt over Chilemba and began examining the stomach wound, but Chilemba pushed his hand away.

  ‘You are Vargen?’ Chilemba asked looking at the woman.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ the woman said.

  ‘Is that the truth about Jackson?’ he asked.

  She grabbed his bloody hand. ‘Gibbs was with me at the time, Chilemba. I promise that it was Captain Schmidt who murdered your friend,’ she said. Chilemba coughed and then winced with pain as the medic started to apply pressure and dress his bloody stomach.

  ‘It is too late for me. I will soon be joining my friend and brother,’ he whispered and looked up at the woman. ‘Promise me, you will make that dog pay with his life.’

  She looked deep into his eyes, filled with pain and grief, then nodded.

  ‘Vargen, promise me,’ he said with more urgency, closing his eyes for a second.

  ‘I will make that promise, Chilemba,’ Gibbs said as he stood swaying near them. His knee crumpled and he slumped to the ground, groaning as he placed both hands on the ground to stop himself falling forward. Two men grabbed him under the arms and lifted him to his feet. ‘That murderer will pay with his life.’

  Chilemba sighed. He smiled with a look of relief on his face, as he died, with Gibbs stood looking over at him.

  • • •

  Gibbs rarely felt remorse for killing someone who’d just tried to end his life, but he did feel sad for the man who’d mistaken him for a murderer. Someone who had sworn to avenge a brother in arms. Markus was going to pay.

  He switched his attention to the woman kneeling next to the body and tried to work out why she seemed familiar. Fogginess clouded his mind again, and he shook his head, studying the black ponytail sticking out from the back of her army cap. She stood up and took off her cap, shaking her shoulder length black hair out.

  Gibbs stared at her beautiful face in shock. Her eyes filled with tears and her lips started quivering. He stared in disbelief, not able to comprehend the ghost in front of him. He had held that face in his hands and kissed those lips so many times before, but he was now convinced that he was dreaming.

  ‘Gibbs, it’s me,’ she said.

  He stepped forward and used all his remaining energy to pick her up off her feet. She hugged him back as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he said, before putting her down again. ‘There are people grieving for you, Christina. I was bloody grieving for you. What the fuck is going on?’

  Christina looked at him, wiping the tears from her eyes. She pulled him to one side while the resistance men secured the ground floor.

  ‘I promise I’ll explain everything and answer all your questions as soon as I can. Can we end all the shooting, now?’ she said after another volley of gunfire hailed down the stairs at the resistance men. Gibbs tore himself away from Christina and went over to the stairs.

  ‘Cease fire!’ he screamed. Everything quietened down, leaving only the echo of gunfire, ringing in Gibbs’s ears.

  ‘You okay down there, boss?’ Shredder shouted from the floor above.

  ‘All good, mate. It’s all over. We’ve surrendered, so get down here.’

  He walked back to Christina. She looked older and more confident. ‘I’m waiting for an explanation?’

  ‘For now, I have one very important question. Were you serious about wanting the GGC to fail? To see them stopped?’

  ‘Of course, I was serious. We sabotaged the damn plane so that the GGC couldn’t get their hands on the professor and his team. We were going to Hamburg via the most exposed route to try and engage the resistance and Vargen…well…you.’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time here, Gibbs but our goals are aligned so I was hoping you would join us to help bring this bloody organisation down.’

  He hugged her again. ‘Of course, you silly woman. I’m hardly going to let you out of my sight ever again, am I?’

  She smiled, squeezing hard. ‘I’m very happy to hear that but first things first. We need you to go upstairs and let your men, and the professor know what is happening.’

  A few minutes later, Shredder, Killey and the rest of the men came downstairs with a very startled research team. The men had all started to take stock of the losses and the state of their resources when Gibbs walked over to Christina. She could see that he was upset.

  ‘Everything’s started to sink in now, so why the hell you didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were going to stage your own death,’ he said.

  ‘Gibbs, not here,’ she said, grabbing his arm. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  He shrugged her hand off and ushered her towards the main door. ‘After you, Vargen.’

  They walked down the stone stairs and after going through a small white wooden door which led to a vast stone room with archway roof supports. The empty town hall cellar.

  ‘Gibbs, I can’t tell you how sorry I am not to have trusted you with the details of the plan. I was sick to my stomach at the thought of what this would do to you and how you might feel. Faking my death and changing my appearance was the only way the resistance could be totally effective. It needed a leader that was around all the time. I couldn’t do it justice by playing both roles anymore.’ she said.

  ‘You knew I was prepared to turn against the GGC bastards at the drop of a hat. For God’s sake, you knew I wanted to kill the bastards. I can’t believe you faked the whole damn thing, the man outside the restaurant, the ambush and the plane crash, all the while lying to my face,’ he said, anger and pain flashing in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gibbs. We’d only just met, and I didn’t know for sure. I don’t know what else to say, other than it was necessary for the plan to work. Once we learnt about the alternative energy source, discretion became imperative for us to succeed. We needed you to come here to Poland and secure the professor, or else Markus would have been sent. That would have meant even more lives lost.’

  ‘I would have trusted you,’ he spat and looked away.

  ‘We knew you wouldn’t agree with me faking my death if we told you, so it was thought best not to tell you. This is all so much bigger than you and me, Gibbs,’ she said.

  ‘What’s all this ‘we’ crap?’

  ‘There is a very senior member of the Phoenix Council involved, someone who has been very disillusioned and unhappy with their current motives. It all seems to be driven by pure greed and self-interest, with the sole mandate being a dictatorial global government. He’s been planning this operation with me, for about six months. Vargen has two heads you see, which is why the GGC have struggled to get to us,’ she explained. ‘We were going to stay in the background and make life difficult for them, but when the fusion technology came to light, we had to change tack.’

  ‘Let me guess, it’s your beloved Lord Butler?’ he asked.

  ‘I trust you with my life, but I cannot, for the safety of everyone involved, tell you who it is at this point. You must understand these kinds of secrets on any mission. By all means, have your suspicions, but I won’t confirm or deny them. You have to trust me,’ she said reaching forward and grabbing his hand. ‘What I can promise is, to put you in front of the man who got you sent to prison. My contact has the name of that man. You will get your ch
ance to get even with him and Markus.’

  Gibbs walked away towards the steps. ‘Okay, Miss Vargen, I’ll go along with it all for now. What next?’

  ‘We all get some sleep,’ she said.

  Chapter 51

  Place: Blonie, Poland

  Date: 2027

  Gibbs awoke, refreshed, after sleeping better than he had in the past few weeks. He looked across to the cot next to him, to see the woman he loved stirring in the early morning light. He got up and went over to Shredder, who was already awake and flicking through an old Polish magazine.

  ‘Morning, boss. Sleep well?’ he said, looking up as Gibbs approached.

  ‘Great thanks, mate. Can you get all the men up for a meeting in the dining room?’ Gibbs said, moving through to the main hall.

  Ten minutes later, his team assembled in the mayor’s dining room that had the same fresco styling as the entrance lobby, with ornate wood panelling on the walls where the mayor would have taken his or her meals. A more jovial mood washed through the group, thanks to a good night’s sleep.

  ‘Morning, men,’ he said. ‘As you recall I told you that Christina is leading the resistance and as agreed last night, we will be joining forces. I just wanted to make sure after you’ve all had a chance to sleep on it, that you were still one hundred percent on board. This will not be a paid mission, but it will mean hitting back at your current employers.’

  Silence followed.

  ‘All of you have civilian clothes in your Bergens. I suggest that you put them on as we don’t want you accidentally being shot by friendly fire. Check and recheck your weapons. I am not sure when we will get downtime again,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘What’s next, boss?’ Shredder said.

  ‘We had a quiet night because the other GGC team retreated to regroup, although we are not sure where. We have to assume they are aware by now that we have joined with the resistance.’