by Powers, AJ
Farhad gagged and gurgled as water flooded into his mouth and nose. His body twitched and spasmed, but his muscles were still unable to respond to the frantic signals to resist from his brain. Hagan poured just long enough to get the message across, then eased the pitcher back. Farhad gasped violently, as if he was taking his first breaths of life, but it had only been just a few seconds since water first splashed off his face.
“Tu diablo blanco!” Farhad shouted.
“That doesn’t sound like Farsi to me, Farhad. Was that Spanish I just heard?” Hagan tossed the towel back down, it slapped off of his victim’s face with a wet thwop. Before Farhad could protest, the water was spilling out of the pitcher, again. “I’m not in the mood today, Hadji. Tell me how you ended up working with the cartels.” Hagan pulled up on the pitcher and removed the towel again.
Farhad choked down the water, nearly vomiting in the process. He inhaled sharply then quickly let the air out. His chest heaved up and down as his lungs worked overtime to replenish the oxygen. His dark, brown eyes, burning with hatred and disgust, narrowed on Hagan. “My father moved us here from Ahvaz when I was twelve. The fool was brainwashed by western propaganda and became consumed with the so-called American dream,” he said, taking a moment to catch his breath. “He was convinced the great ayatollah was an enemy of the people and gave up his business as a tailor. He sold everything we owned and moved me and my three sisters to Detroit.”
“And little Farhad was mad at daddy for making him leave all his friends behind in Iran?” Hagan mocked.
Farhad laughed derisively. “If only you knew what your people have done to mine over the years, you would wretch at the thought of living in this place, too.”
“You mean like crashing airplanes into office buildings? Or, beheading civilians who were trying to give people food and water? Or kidnap women and turning them into slaves for jihadists to rape whenever they damn well please? Those types of things, Farhad?” Hagan shot back; the scabs of old wounds being picked at.
Farhad smiled. “I’m afraid you cannot blame that one on me. I wasn’t even born when those brave martyrs of Allah brought your country to its knees.”
Hagan fought the urge to empty his pistol into the man’s stomach just so he could watch him bleed out. His knuckles turned white as his grip on the gun tightened. Images of the friends he lost to some of the most gruesome traps ever conceived flashed to the front of his mind. He thought back to the lifeless villages his unit had discovered, where countless butchered bodies—men, women, children—were found in every hut. All slaughtered because the mere notion of helping, or receiving help, from Americans was worthy of death.
His blood pressure skyrocketed as the horrors of that previous life hit him hard and anew, as if his boots had tromped through the sandy landscape just yesterday. He took a deep breath to simmer the boiling rage. Time was not his ally, and he still needed more information. “You still haven’t told me how you started working with those very bad people from South America.”
Farhad laughed again. “As I told you before, I’m quite sure I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Have it your way, Farhad,” Hagan said through a sigh, slamming the towel back down on the man’s face, the palm of his hand driving into his nose until Hagan felt a crunch. The man screamed in pain, but his cries were quickly overwhelmed by rushing water. “Fortunately for you, Farhad, I’m not actually here to talk about who pays your rent. So, enough of the pleasantries,” Hagan stopped pouring but left the towel on. The soaked fabric danced as Farhad’s mouth opened and closed like a fish on the shoreline. “You, along with a bunch of other hired thugs, attacked a village two years ago. I want to know who put you up to it.”
Hagan removed the towel, revealing a look of terror stretched across Farhad’s bloodied face. But the terror quickly morphed to revulsion. “Vete al infierno!” he hissed.
Hagan shook his head. “Me? Go to hell?” he said in feigned offense as he stepped over to the kitchen counter. He came back with a steak knife in his hand. “Now, that’s not very nice, Farhad,” he growled before driving the blade deep into Farhad’s thigh. The man’s scream rattled the glasses in the cabinets. Hagan then resumed drowning the man, silencing his cries of misery. “Oh, I forgot to tell you… Even though you can’t move, you can still feel pain. So, keep that in mind as we move forward,” Hagan said. “I’ve got all day, Farhad,” he lied, “So, spare yourself the agony and just tell me what I want to know.” Hagan gave the man a chance to speak, but his response was similar to the one before. With the pitcher empty, Hagan left the drenched towel draped over Farhad’s face and flipped on the faucet. “I’ll tell you what I told the last guy. You’re not walking away from this. But it’s up to you how short and painless life is before you go and find out whether all that virgin talk is true.”
With another 96 ounces ready to go, Hagan stepped back over to Farhad and removed the cloth, displaying the filled pitcher. Panting heavily, Farhad was stealing as much oxygen as he could before his captor snatched it away again. His eyes were still filled with animosity, but defeat was slowly creeping in.
Hagan held up the water and reached for the towel when Farhad pleaded for clemency. “Okay, okay, okay…” he said quickly, halting Hagan’s motion. “Back before the civil war started, I got hired by a company called Vortex…”
Hagan immediately knew the rest of Farhad’s story before he could even tell it. Vortex was a private military contractor that was a subsidiary of the Apollo Group. The company had won numerous contracts with the federal government over the years and had thousands of highly trained veterans, including quite a few special forces operators, stationed all over the globe on Uncle Sam’s dime. A few months before America’s second civil war, the Apollo Group had ordered Vortex to staff up, quadrupling its personnel in just six months. After a sharp decline in applicants with military and law enforcement backgrounds, Vortex opened positions to pretty much anyone with a trigger finger, including a great deal of South American police officers, many of whom were on the Raza Reyes payroll. However, shortly after the Apollo Group activated Delphi, the computer program that was the catalyst for the civil war and, ultimately, the collapse and dissolvement of the United States, Apollo severed ties with the South American mercenaries over the brutality of their tactics and unpredictable behavior. This created a headache for Apollo, especially as they worked to establish the foundations of Alexandria. But, eventually the two groups agreed to a cease fire of sorts, each side giving into demands of the other to avoid mutual destruction.
“Ahhh,” Hagan said, stroking the scruff on his neck, “So, you do work for the Raza Reyes…”
Farhad neither confirmed nor denied the accusations.
“So, how then did you get involved with this attack?” Hagan asked.
“My commanding officer from Vortex became a high-ranking general within the Civil Republican Guard. He told me if I agreed to do the job, he’d be able to bring me on. Two paychecks sounded pretty good to me. Plus, I know what these people do. Getting paid to abuse, even kill Americans? Well, as you say, I was having my cake and eating it, too,” he grinned menacingly.
Hagan gave him an incredulous look. “The regime would never hire someone from the cartels.”
Farhad laughed. “Not knowingly, no.”
“And the Raza Reyes were okay with you working for an enemy?”
“I am just one of many.”
“What is this general’s name?” Hagan asked.
“Javier Gamboa.”
Hagan memorized the name.
“But,” Farhad continued, “before you go and try to track him down, you should probably know that he’s dead.”
Hagan growled. “How?”
“The Council had him executed—drawn and quartered.”
“Why did they kill their own general?”
Farhad smiled, blood from his still-leaking nose had stained his teeth red. “They found out he was working with the cartels.”<
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The man was playing games with Hagan, adding to the swelling anger coursing through his veins. “Then give me another name!” he demanded, his hand hovering over the handle of the steak knife sticking out of Farhad’s leg.
“I know of many names,” Farhad said confidently, “but you will not get them from me.”
Hagan’s fingers grasped the handle of the knife and he twisted the blade ruthlessly, pushing it deeper into Farhad’s muscle. Hagan let the man scream. He let go of the knife and allowed Farhad’s screams to wane. “You sure you don’t want to reconsider?” Hagan asked.
Tires squelched outside the building, pulling Hagan’s attention to the window. He peeked out from behind the drapes and saw a red sedan stopped in the middle of the road, a lone man with a short-barreled rifle exiting the car. The man ran straight for the building’s entrance and out of Hagan’s view. “Crap!” Hagan muttered under his breath.
Farhad let out a raspy cough, peppering his wet, white shirt with spittle and blood. He laughed ironically. “Friends of yours?”
Ignoring the question, Hagan turned around from the window and stepped back into the kitchen. “Last chance, Farhad. Who else was involved?”
Farhad’s breathing was shallow, his eyes locked on the lights above him, as if he was staring at the approaching tunnel of the afterlife. “I have made many mistakes in my life—committed many sins—but I’ll be damned if I have to stand before Allah and explain why I helped an infidel like you.”
Hagan chewed on his lip for a moment, nodding his head in thought. Farhad was a dead end. “Well… Tell him I said hello.” Hagan yanked the knife from Farhad’s leg and swiped the blade across his neck.
Farhad’s screams stopped.
Chapter 12
Mason slammed on the brakes, his tires squealing angrily as his car wrenched to a stop in front of the apartment building. Backup was at least five minutes out, but he had no plans to wait. He tightened the strap on his plate carrier and reached for his Colt Commando leaning against the passenger’s seat. Mason opened the door, trading out the hot interior for the arctic blast outside and headed straight for the hoplites guarding the doors.
“Circle around back and make sure he doesn’t leave through another exit,” Mason said.
“Yes, sir!” the men said in unison, jogging toward the alley to the north.
Mason yanked back on the charging handle of his carbine, chambering a 5.56mm cartridge. He swung the glass door open and stepped into the posh lobby of the building. The room was large but sparsely furnished, with just a couch and a few chairs on either end. Mason swept his muzzle from left to right, quickly clearing the room. He lightly stepped across the white, polished marble floor, aligning himself with a stairwell door in the corner. A loud beep from the elevator echoed through the foyer, causing Mason to pivot his body toward the sound. He raised the rifle at the parting doors, horrifying a young mother and her son as they stepped into the lobby.
The woman gasped.
“There’s a threat in the building. You need to get out of here,” Mason said to the frightened woman, assuring her that he wasn’t the threat he spoke of.
The woman nodded hysterically and grabbed her son’s hand, towing him out of the building as fast as their feet would carry them.
The radio on Mason’s shoulder squawked to life. It was the first of two TAC teams.
“Alpha One, two mikes.”
“Copy that, Alpha One. Delta team isn’t far behind.”
“Winters here. Twenty seconds.”
Mason muted the incoming radio traffic and proceeded to the stairwell. His heart thumped painfully in his chest as the sole of his boot planted on the first step. His carbine pointed skyward, his eyes constantly scanning for the subtlest of motion. One by one, Mason climbed the stairs, reevaluating his surroundings at each landing. The pounding in his chest quickened when he heard a faint scream from the next floor up. He picked up the pace, reaching the fifth floor in seconds. He slowed himself as he approached the landing door straight ahead. His mind was bombarded by a myriad of outcomes this encounter could have, clouding his judgment as he inched closer to the steel door. Don’t let him get the jump on you, Mason heard himself say. That’s all that mattered. He didn’t have to win; he just couldn’t afford to lose.
Staging himself just in front of the door, Mason traded out his Colt for his Canik TP9 Elite. Clutching tightly to the 9mm pistol, Mason took a deep breath and reached for the handle when a loud crashing sound below echoed up the stairwell. Mason reflexively whipped his head around, looking for a threat behind him, but found none. It took just a second for him to realize the sound was the arrival of his backup, but by the time he returned his focus to the door in front of him, it had opened.
Mason’s body locked with fear, and his eyes went wide with panic when he saw the tall man standing in front of him.
Typhon.
Their eyes met for a beat. Then Typhon raised his gun.
“No!” Mason shouted as he raised his own gun.
Chapter 13
Hagan squeezed the trigger, his MP7 belching to life. The stairwell lit up from the brilliant muzzle flash of the machine pistol as it spit half a dozen rounds at the startled man in the stairwell. At the same time, Hagan felt the sizzle from a 9mm bullet ripping through the flesh on his arm as the man shot his own pistol. Hagan swallowed the pain and watched as the threat lurched backwards, a look of shock on his face. He was young, and Hagan felt a pang in his stomach at the thought of taking the life of such a young man—a boy, really. But, he had no choice, and remembering who the boy worked for quickly quelled any regret pecking at his soul.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” someone shouted from down below as the boy in front of Hagan collapsed, falling backwards down the stairs.
Hagan dispatched a volley of bullets in the direction of the voice, forcing the assault team to temporarily halt their advances. He fired again before turning and hauling ass down the hallway. Reaching the stairwell on the opposite end of the building, Hagan slapped a fresh magazine home and cautiously opened the door, his MP7 leading the charge. Finding the stairwell clear, he moved swiftly down the steps, his feet as light as a ballet dancer’s. Sirens outside blared loudly, heralding his demise as more itchy trigger fingers closed in on the building.
Maybe I should’ve waited for Saul after all, Hagan thought somberly as he reached the ground floor. But that sinking ship had already set sail; he needed to focus on finding a lifeboat.
Hearing commotion on the other side of the door as more threats rushed into the lobby, Hagan reached for the handle to a maintenance door on the adjacent wall.
Locked.
Hagan had picked thousands of locks over the course of his life, but never had speed and accuracy been so critical to his survival. Working the torsion wrench and snake rake like they were extensions of his fingers, Hagan focused on each pin pushing up just the right amount as he applied a twisting pressure. He soon had the tumbler lock released, granting him access to the maintenance area on the other side. Slipping through the door, he latched it quietly behind him. No sooner than the lock reengaging, the door to the lobby burst open. After a quick jiggle of the secured handle, the thunderous clop of angry boots ascended the stairs.
The tired veteran relished in a quick moment of relief before moving down the hallway toward the back of the building. As the element of surprise shifted slightly back in his favor, Hagan felt the noose around his neck loosen ever so slightly. He might just make it out in one piece, after all. But he couldn’t let the sudden jolt of optimism cloud his thoughts. Even if he managed to escape the building undetected, he still had a long way to go to escape the lion’s den entirely.
Navigating several long hallways, Hagan found himself approaching an old boiler room. He pressed the stock of the MP7 into his shoulder and quietly stepped inside, quickly clearing the large space of threats. The noisy hums of multiple furnace fans running concurrently filled the room, diminishing his abi
lity to hear an approaching threat. But the loud crash of the stairwell door he’d picked just moments earlier reached his ears with threatening clarity. Moving further away from the stairwell, Hagan discovered an open door that had been obscured by a cluster of hot water heaters. Sprinting through the door, he found another hallway, and to his relief, an exit sign hanging above a door at the end.
Hagan rushed to the door and quietly removed the bar lock before pressing his ear against the cold steel. It was faint, but he heard voices and radio chatter on the other side.
“Dammit,” he growled. Hagan paused for a second to weigh his options, but the voices from the boiler room made the decision for him.
With threats impeding either path, Hagan opted for fresh air. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the bar down and threw the door open, storming outside. There were three hoplites in a gaggle—bunched up like teens on a lunch break. They weren’t professional soldiers and today they would pay a price for pretending to be. Their guns were in their hands but all down by their legs. Only one of them even attempted to fire back before Hagan cut them down with his MP7.
Before the last body hit the ground, Hagan was hopping over the railing of the short, concrete staircase to the ground below. The noisy report of his machine pistol had echoed down the street for blocks, announcing to all his pursuers that he was no longer inside the building.
Things had gone from bad to worse.
Hagan sprinted across the street and ducked into the first alley he passed. Gunfire cracked behind him as chunks of brick and mortar exploded off to his left, peppering his face with debris. Turning on the jets, Hagan sprinted deeper into the alleyway, quickly breaking line of sight with the shooters. He stopped and turned around just as a pair of armed men rounded the corner. Hagan opened fire, dropping both men efficiently, but their body armor, more resilient than he realized, seemed to have done its job.
Though both men were still alive, they were actively retreating and no longer a threat. Sirens and the growl of redlining engines filled Hagan’s ears. The whisper of chopping rotors in the distance announced an approaching helo. With each second that passed, Hagan’s confidence that he would escape this mess plunged.