by S L Shelton
I kept driving him backward into the small cell, and I kicked the door closed with my foot. As I drove him to the ground, the door slammed shut, and I heard the latch clank.
“Shit,” I muttered as I landed on top of him. “Look what you made me do.”
With his free arm, he was busy trying to drag my hand away from his mouth, while simultaneously trying to reach his pistol with the other. I dragged my knee sharply up between his legs but the pain in my leg was so intense my strike failed to stop his struggling—so I repeated the motion, throwing all my weight behind it, gritting my teeth against the burning in my thighs.
“Can you hear me now?” I whispered as my knee made contact the second time.
When his struggling ceased, I brought my elbow up and slammed it down in the center of his face.
“How about now?” I asked as I stood.
I breathed deeply, trying to control the flood of adrenaline, before reaching for the pistol on his hip. As my fingers wrapped around it, someone yelled from down the hall.
“Two men down!” he yelled.
Footsteps crashed down the hallway, past my cell, and then away as I tucked the pistol into the back of my pants. The wavy-glassed window seemed to be my only option—I needed to be out of there before they made the connection.
Pain or no pain, it’s time to climb.
I pulled the window open and squinted against the glare of the early morning sunrise as I pulled myself through, holding onto the sill as I lowered myself to the line of stone beneath.
I reached up and tugged the window closed behind me, hopefully giving me some extra time before they figured out where I had gone. With the sheerness of the cliff outside my window, suicide would have been the only non-ventilation use for the open pane—I hoped that’s what they would think anyway.
My feet easily found a line of rough stone, but with only enough room for my toes, I had to flex all the way up my wounded legs. The pain shot up my back and the front through my hips—this would be more difficult than I’d thought.
Back home, this climb would barely be a warm up for me. But I wasn’t back home—I was escaping from a fortress in the Swiss Alps, wounded, beaten, and cold…but at least I was still alive. That’s more than I had counted on as little as an hour earlier.
I began moving along the cliff face, my back to the rising sun. Despite the cold, the rock was already warm and welcoming. I began to feel my strength return as my fingers felt for holds in the granite.
How am I going to get a message to Langley? I wondered as I moved across the rock face. But a few minutes into my climb, loose rubble and snow began dropping on me from above. I leaned back and stretched my neck out to see the source of the disturbance.
“There he is!” someone yelled.
About sixty feet above, one of the bad guys was leaning over the edge of the roof. I pulled back tight against the stone, shielded only minimally by the buttress of the structure above me. He fired in my direction…most likely just trying to keep me pinned down.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I looked right and left, trying to judge how much farther I could go without exposing myself to the men above. I realized I couldn’t go in either direction more than a couple of feet without being a target.
I released one hand and shook the tension from my fingers as I contemplated my next move. More shots rained down in the edge of stone above me, and then a green braided rappel rope dropped down behind me. They were coming down.
As I leaned backward to see the progress of the mercenaries above, I reached into my waistband and pulled the handgun that Bellos had so generously donated to my cause. One of the men was already over the wall and on his way down. As he descended, he kept his rifle pointed toward me, but his attention was on the lip of the ledge on the old fortress. As he shifted his attention down, I fired three rapid shots, sending his buddy above scurrying backward, away from the edge and hitting the rappeler in the shoulder and head—he released his brake hand, sending him sliding down the rope.
I pulled back into the rock as he slid by and then looked down just as he reached the end of the rope, continuing his descent to the valley floor—after hitting several sharp, granite outcroppings along the way.
“Sixteen,” I muttered.
I looked up and had to duck back against the wall as a baseball-sized object whizzed next to my head…a second later and the explosion beneath me shook one of my feet loose.
Grenades!
I reached out and fired up again, trying to dust the attackers from the edge. But the large-caliber weapon didn’t hold many rounds—the slide locked back after six more shots.
“Keep it coming, assholes!” I yelled up at the faces.
Another grenade dropped past me, detonating a little closer than the first one had, less than thirty feet below me. I knew, eventually, they would figure out they should “cook off” a second of the grenade’s fuse time before dropping it, and that would be it for me.
Come on, Scott…think!
I looked to my right and saw the edge of the fortress wall, only fifteen yards beyond me.
Only fifteen yards, I thought as I glanced at the jagged rocks below me. If I’d had another five minutes, I could have made it.
I looked up again and gazed longingly at the green braided rappel rope. It might be long enough, I thought. If I can avoid being shot while building up enough momentum, I can swing over the last few yards.
I reached behind me and leaned out to grab the rope. I’d had to pendulum across rock faces before—I’d just never done it while being shot at. After grabbing the rope, I looped a fast figure-eight loop at waist level and then pulled a length of it around my waist.
I took a deep breath. “Here goes everything,” I muttered before launching myself sideways, pinching a fold of rope around my loop.
I began to “run” sideways, back the way I came. I had to build up a decent amount of momentum if I was going to reach the edge of the wall before they thought to cut the rope.
Above me, they began firing. I tried to push that reality out of my head—there was nothing I could do about it—but each impact on the stone and each buzzing metal insect that whizzed past my head forced it back to the foreground.
I launched myself to the left as hard as I could, kicking out with my feet as I swung. I had little strength left in my legs, so as I reached the end of my swing—too early—I began banging and spinning back to where I had been like the dysfunctional pendulum of a broken grandfather clock.
There was approximately sixty feet of rope above me and about forty-five feet of travel required to reach the edge of the barrier wall. Under ideal circumstances and optimum pivot, I might be able to get there using three-quarters the length of the rope—there was more than enough to get me to the edge. But these were not ideal circumstances, and the gunfire wasn’t making them any better.
I stopped, found my footing, and tried swinging left again, getting a better run this time. When my momentum began to slow this time, I leaned into the rope and began running along the cliff face.
Pushing with my legs as hard as I could, I strained to reach ahead; I was nearly back to the window I had come out of. My thighs were burning, and I could feel the slickness of blood starting to ooze down my legs inside my pants.
I reached out for the window as I arched up, but missed it by inches. This time though, I kept my feet under me when I flipped around, running along the cliff on the return swing instead of spinning out of control. There wasn’t going to be enough rope for me to reach the outside wall, but there was no way for me to stop and re-adjust the knot—I had been lucky I’d been able to make it to begin with. As the edge came toward me, I grimaced at the thought of the last five feet I’d have to travel… I needed more momentum.
One more time, Scott. You can do it.
I spun myself in the loop of rope and began running back toward the window. I pushed as hard and as fast as I could with my legs. As I approached the window, one of
Harbinger’s men leaned out and leveled a handgun at me.
No, no! I was so close.
When I was within a few feet of the window, expecting a shot to my chest, the man’s head exploded into a pink mist. I continued my push without missing a step, but I was seriously confused about what had just happened…until I heard the shot from across the valley.
Someone is sniping from that other ridge! “Fifteen!” I grunted.
I pushed hard with my legs, trying to gain the last few feet I would need for the swing back. When I lost all of my forward movement, I launched myself out, away from the cliff, building as much free-fall momentum as possible. When my feet returned to the rock, I was moving fast. It took a great effort to keep my legs perpendicular to the cliff, but I managed to break into a full run in the swing back toward the wall. The edge was approaching quickly.
I looked up and panic seized me—one of the men at the top had a knife out, about to cut my pendulum short. I pumped my legs as fast as I could, swinging, riding the arc toward the edge of the wall. Stretched out with all my might, I was devastated to realize I wouldn’t have enough momentum.
Shit! It’s not enough.
I had no choice. I had to release while I still had forward momentum or the cutting of the rope would sling me to the valley floor. I released my grip on the rope and let the pinched section of braid slip through my fingers as I launched forward. Just as I reached the apex of my flight, I experienced a split second of weightlessness before I began to fall. I reached out desperately toward the corner of the wall, trying to cling to anything that might help me reach it.
Inches…all I needed was a few inches.
My hands scrambled against the wall, but I couldn’t get a grip. Just as hope fled my mind, an arm reached out from behind the base of the stone wall where it met the mountain, as if the corner had suddenly sprouted a limb. I reached out desperately and grabbed the top of the tactical vest at the shoulder. A strong hand grasped me above my bicep.
As my feet struck rock, bouncing once before I looked up, I heard, “Got him.”
When my eyes focused, I saw the grimacing face of Chief Petty Officer Seifert—Majesty.
“Hey, Monkey Wrench,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Seifert,” I replied casually as if we had bumped into each other at a coffee shop. “How’s it hanging?”
“Funny,” he said straining. “Get the fuck up here before you tear my arm out of the socket.”
I climbed over him, using the edge of the wall as leverage, before shoving myself through the narrow gap of rock he was wedged into between the corner of the building and the mountain. With my feet still dangling over the edge of the cliff, I used my arms to pull myself around the corner of the wall and then dropped down into the wet snow.
“Come on,” I said, tugging at his tactical vest to help him pull back from the edge.
“He’s up, Spartan, send in the helo,” Seifert said as I leaned over and looked around the corner to the sheer rock face I had just traversed.
“Tell him he can’t,” I said, snapping my attention back to him. “This whole valley is lined with Igla-S rocket arrays.”
“What?!” Majesty asked as he pushed himself farther from the ledge. “He’s on the other side of that ridge with a chopper he just brought in here.”
That was the sound I heard earlier!
I shook my head. “They’ve got automated Strelets launchers set up on four mountaintops,” I said and pointed. “There, there, there, and there.”
“Spartan, be advised,” Seifert said. “Spartan?”
I heard the thwack, thwack, thwack of helicopter blades echoing from all directions.
“Roger…be advised. Monkey Wrench informs Strelets lining the valley,” Seifert said before pulling his radio from his vest, detaching the headset wire. “He wants to talk to you.”
I pressed the button. “Spartan, this is Monkey Wrench.”
“Inbound now to extract,” Nick said. “Where are those missiles?”
“They’re on four ridges surrounding us,” I replied. “We’re right in the middle.”
“How far out?” Nick asked.
“They’re bracketing a Swiss Air Base…Alpnach.”
“Monkey Wrench… Papa and Rose Garden are flying out of Alpnach as we speak,” Nick said. “Standby.”
A cold wave ran up my spine that had nothing to do with the snow I was laying in. Over the opposite ridge, I watched as a civilian helicopter rose above the summit and tilted in our direction.
“Spartan, they’ve got that repeater controlling the missile arrays,” I said. “Papa won’t see those plumes until they’re outside his window. We have to go back in.”
No answer. I assumed he had switched channels on his radio to warn the director.
“Shit,” I muttered and then looked at Seifert. “We have to go in.”
Seifert shook his head as he reached behind him and pulled out a second radio and headset. He plugged his own earpiece into the second radio before switching it on and tapping in the encryption pin.
“Arrow, this is Majesty,” he said as he tossed me the extra headset.
I popped the earbud into my ear before clipping the radio to the collar of my T-shirt beneath the heavier sweatshirt to keep it safe. I didn’t have a thumb trigger, so I had to switch it to VOX—voice activated.
“Go Majesty,” I heard Lieutenant Marsh’s voice answer as I plugged in the headset.
“Monkey Wrench says we need to go into the big, heavily fortified medieval castle.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I muttered to him. “It’s more like a ski lodge.”
He turned his head and pounded the stone wall with the side of his hand. “Seems pretty heavily fortified to me.”
“Roger,” Marsh replied. “Spartan, this is Arrow.”
I looked at the approaching helicopter and saw it swoop down toward the floor of the valley before climbing back up.
“Spartan, this is Arrow,” Marsh said again.
From above us, shots were fired, sending up spikes of snow dust upon impact, only feet away. Seifert grabbed my shoulder and dragged me to a bricked up recess in the wall. It looked as if at one time it had been a gate opening that had been sealed in ages past.
“It’s getting hot over here, Arrow,” Seifert said. “How about some cover fire?”
I leaned out to look up before signaling to Seifert with my trigger finger flexing, asking for a weapon. He pulled his SIG Sauer from his hip and handed it to me. I fired up once as soon as it was in my hand—a body fell in front of us.
“Fourteen,” I said as I stepped out and fired three more rounds, clearing the edge of the roof as they ducked away.
The chopper banked hard below the edge of the cliff and started to come up to a clearing. But as the body of the chopper broke above the cliff line, someone yelled over their radio, “RPG!”
The helicopter broke hard away from the cliff and tried to avoid the incoming projectile…but it was too late. The missile struck the rear of the chopper, sending it lurching sideways. The whining and grinding of steel and machine parts filled the air as the helo began to rotate and smoke.
“Shit,” Seifert muttered. “There goes our ride home.”
“Are we crashing up or down?” someone asked, panicked, through the radio.
“Up,” I heard Nick answer, followed by the helicopter tipping impossibly backward and up as it careened toward the upper edge of the stone wall overlooking the cliff.
The wounded aircraft tipped even further when its tail made contact with the top of the defensive wall, flipping backward into the compound until it disappeared from sight.
On the other side of the wall, a concussive blast of helicopter blades and hull smashed and scraped against stone as the helo’s carcass slammed down somewhere inside the compound courtyard.
“Helo down, helo down,” Seifert said into his radio.
“That’s it, I’m going over,” I said as I tucked Seifert�
�s pistol into my waistband.
“Wait,” Seifert said, tugging on my pants and grabbing a handful of bloody denim.
I knocked his hand away. “Nick’s in there now,” I said as I grabbed the lip of the sealed gate archway. “I’m going in. You can come or stay…makes no difference to me.”
“Shit,” he muttered, but I was already halfway up the stone arch above the ancient, sealed gateway.
I threw my leg over the top after peeking to see how many men were up there with me. There were two, but they were now firing toward the courtyard on the other side of the wall, presumably at the survivors of the helicopter crash. I drew my borrowed weapon and aimed at the back of a mercenary’s head. When I pulled the trigger, he lurched forward and fell head over feet, out of sight.
“Thirteen,” I muttered as I shifted my aim to the second man. He dove across the wall and out of sight as my first shot went wide.
I climbed to the edge of the roof above the courtyard, looking over the wreckage of the helicopter. Across the yard was the window to the room where I had stashed the bodies earlier. Below me, I could hear our rescuers firing, taking cover behind the carcass of the ruined helo.
“Spartan, this is Monkey Wrench,” I said into my mic.
No reply came as I spotted Harbinger in the yard. He moved across the yard like a slow-moving tank, seemingly unfazed by the small arms fire around him. I fired down at him, but a stream of bullets from the yard sent me to the side, wrecking my shot.
I dropped down to my knees behind the lip of the roof. It was then that I got a good look at what Harbinger was firing…a massive, drum-fed Atchisson Assault Shotgun. The rounds were streaming from his barrel and bursting explosively on contact.
He’s using frag shells!
I had to find a way to shut him down before he killed the survivors from the chopper.
“Monkey Wrench, this is Majesty,” I heard in my ear.
“What?” I asked, just as I was contemplating a jump.
“A hand up please?” he said.