Apex

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  “This is huge. We should keep going. Who knows what else—?”

  “Not a chance. You got your smoking gun; now we’re leaving.” When she only stood there glaring at him, he continued, “Don’t force me to knock you out, because I will. We’re done here. Wilde has to die before more people meet the same fate.”

  Her stubborn resolve crumbled. “You’re right. Let’s get going.”

  Max figured the elevator would be guarded, but none of Wilde’s troops awaited them in the trashed computer room. The claxon continued blaring as the doors slid closed. Max began adjusting his gear in preparation for what they might meet on level one.

  “What will you do when this is over?” Heat asked over the elevator’s whining motor, which raised them at a leisurely pace.

  Max didn’t look up. “Continue tracking down the men who killed my family.” As a distraction from the intense pain wracking his body, he concentrated on checking his weapons.

  “Then I suppose we’ll never see each other again.”

  “Probably not.” At her single sob, he looked up.

  “You motherfucker. You’d better make it out of this. I... I owe you—”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “No, I do! I really stepped in it this time, Max. I stole a speed boat and drove it here with the express purpose of getting captured so I could investigate. Fuck, what was I thinking? I should have listened to you. If you hadn’t come, I’d be dead by now.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. But stick close and we might make it out alive.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Though she’d stopped crying, tears still swam in her eyes. She took a step closer. “How much longer is this ride?”

  “Not even at level two yet.” He looked into her eyes, sensed that she needed something. Assurance? Himself? Both? “We’ve got long enough.”

  She stepped closer. Max took her in his arms and kissed her. Knowing they hadn’t much time before the elevator stopped, they came together and bonded on the most intimate level, showing an affection for one another absent even when they’d made love.

  A chime sounded as they passed level two. Both heard it; neither moved to separate.

  Max knew he was as combat ready as possible. And I’ve got one more floor to go. He reveled in the warm wetness of her mouth, the closeness of her body, as the elevator dragged them slowly upward and back to their separate lives.

  23

  The elevator opened to the unmistakable sound of a launched grenade. It detonated, drowning out the chatter of a machinegun very close by.

  Max led Heat into the garage area.

  A squad of five enemy troops lay atop the ramp leading up and out of the bunker, taking partial cover from Swift’s onslaught as they returned fire. One of the prone men fired bursts from a machinegun that sounded like a FN MAG. A tall, hulking man stood behind them, far enough down the ramp to avoid any direct fire as he barked orders.

  Max immediately recognized the leader, Hellik. Crouching low he led Heat down a line of parked jeeps, where he left her in the cover of the one closest to the ramp. “Wait here.”

  Shaken by the sounds of the full-blown battle raging outside, she said, “Not a fucking problem.”

  Max wanted Hellik to feel the wrath of his revenge. Doubtful. He’s basically a robot, just get it over with. He crept up behind the monstrosity, rifle raised, and asked in a low voice, “Do lizards go to hell?”

  Hellik whirled with his usual blinding speed.

  Max was ready for him this time and shot him in the head the instant he began to move.

  Apparently, being crossed with a dinosaur didn’t shrink a man’s brain to the size of a cashew, for Hellik fell instantly and showed no signs of reviving. His acidic blood smoked a bit as it flowed down the ramp.

  The men atop the ramp didn’t notice the shot over the roar of their massed weapons.

  Looky there. Max’s final HE grenade was clipped to Hellik’s combat vest.

  He grabbed it, pulled the pin, and lobbed the grenade over the heads of the enemy to land just ahead of them. As they shouted in panicked French and squirmed down the ramp to the escape the explosion, Max opened fire, picking them off with two shots each, black fish in a barrel. Only one of them even came close to returning fire; Max finished him off with a bullet through the throat.

  “Let’s go, Heat!”

  Max picked up the machinegun. The heft of the attached plastic ammo drum indicated it had been reloaded recently. Fuckin’ A! He slung his rifle and crawled—kneecaps screaming in pain—far enough up the ramp to view the area around the bunker.

  Perfect chaos reigned in the yard. At least three of the smaller dinosaurs ran loose, wreaking havoc amongst Wilde’s men, who sought cover wherever they could, some fending off the lizards while others fired on the jungle tree line. One half of the rolling front gate lay in the road, blown off its tracks. Enemy troops took cover behind one of the covered flatbed vehicles, which had been hit and now sat askew on its side. Dead men lay scattered about, along with a couple of bullet-riddled dinosaurs.

  The terrified creatures ran about in the maelstrom, lashing out in fear whenever they came close to a human. One disengaged from fighting two soldiers, taking a couple of bullets in the process, and hopped toward the outer fence to jump over. It changed its mind at the last second when Swift—standing at the tree line, monolithic even from a distance—fired bursts over its head from his Uzis. The rerouted dinosaur turned and leapt, landed atop a soldier, and crushed his arm, then hopped straight for the ramp.

  Max fired a burst at the creature’s flank that steered it toward the upset jeep.

  As the soldiers behind the vehicle fought the beast at close range, Max dropped them with withering machinegun fire. Swift charged from the tree line, Uzis ablaze, with Otto following about thirty feet behind. No sign of Flint, but the occasional single shot from his sniper rifle was unmistakable, and each left a man dead. Max kept shooting, mowing down men and accidentally killing one of the dinosaurs with a stray bullet to the head. Swift and Otto reached the front gate and ran through, Swift shooting two men to Max’s left while laying down covering fire for Otto, who sprinted for one of the intact vehicles.

  Otto fired up their ticket out of the compound. If that weren’t enough reason for Max to bug out, another dinosaur—a larger maneater, drawn perhaps by the scent of blood—hopped the fence, landed, and then sprung again at the first soldier he saw.

  Max grabbed Heat by her wrist. As he stood, he hauled her to her feet. He shoved a spare drum of machinegun ammo into her other hand. “Move!”

  The order proved superfluous; Heat damn near dragged him to the vehicle. They dove into the bed, Swift joining them a moment later.

  “Get us outta here!” Max shouted.

  He cut a man down with the machinegun as Otto floored the truck and flew for the gate. Swift, with fresh mags in his Uzis, took over while Max reloaded. The plastic tarp covering the bed made it impossible to see what flanked the vehicle. They could only keep low as bullets tore into the cover.

  Then their plastic roof caved in beneath a great weight. Heat screamed. The moving truck shook, rocked violently to the right. Max was certain they would roll over even as they recovered from the crushing weight, which had already moved on. He figured a frightened dinosaur must have hopped onto the vehicle and then quickly jumped off.

  Swift threw aside the bent metal poles which had supported the canopy, then ripped away the plastic tarp and discarded it. They now rode in an open truck bed.

  Otto exited the gate, turned left, and then stopped. “Cover Flint!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Max saw his scout sniper emerge from the tree line a good fifty yards away. He and Swift kept the lead flying, pinning down a couple of troops who had noticed Flint. Most of Wilde’s other men engaged the maneater. A grenade exploded as they tried to
fend off the roaring beast, whose teeth already gleamed crimson.

  “Shit!” Swift shouted as a smaller dinosaur ran through the gate and broke toward the truck, harried by bullets from the soldiers. He fired two bursts that turned it around.

  Spying the safety of the jungle, the dinosaur bounded for the trees on a collision course with Flint, who dropped and rolled when the beast landed near him. As deftly as he’d dropped beneath the dinosaur, Flint regained his feet in a heartbeat and continued toward the truck, jumping into the bed a few seconds later.

  Otto floored it as they left the compound behind, rapidly gaining speed down the road leading to the airstrip.

  There’ll be a turnoff uphill somewhere. “Where’s Pierce?” Swift shouted at Max.

  “Up at the chateau. Look for a left turn, Otto.”

  “Gotcha!”

  “We got company.” Swift pointed to a vehicle pulling out from the bunker, half a dozen soldiers crammed in the open bed.

  “Great,” Max responded. Fortunately, his team was out of effective striking range. For the moment.

  “Here comes the reach-around,” Otto said.

  Ahead a vehicle zipped straight toward them. It resembled a Humvee command car: lightly armored with a low profile and a machine gunner poking out of the roof. Likewise wielding a FN MAG, the enemy gunner opened fire. Max and Swift unleashed a hailstorm of bullets over Otto. They pinged and sparked off the armored car and forced the enemy gunner into the vehicle.

  Though he didn’t know how fast their enemy traveled, Max estimated Otto was doing at least fifty mph. The vehicles closed rapidly.

  Max and Swift’s bullets ricocheted off the armored hood and bulletproof windshield. Both men recognized the futility of their attack. They shot out the front tires, which must have been solid rubber.

  “Hang on!” Otto shouted as he steeled himself to end their game of chicken.

  The opposing driver had the heavier vehicle but the lighter nerve. He swerved at the last instant into the muddy field surrounding the airstrip.

  “Splash one!” Swift said.

  Otto took the suggestion. He slowed the truck to thirty or so, wrenched the wheel, and made a hard left onto a dirt road that descended quickly into a boggy depression. A deluge of stinking, filthy water drenched the team as he plowed through the shallow swamp.

  Heat screamed again, probably from the shock of getting doused.

  “What ya screamin’ for?” Swift shouted. “This here’s the fun part.”

  Water flooded from the rear of the truck as Otto cleared the swamp and drove uphill into the jungle. Unlike the decently maintained road to the airstrip, the one running up to the chateau proved to be a tortuous nightmare of ruts, rocks, and myriad puddles that slowed them to a crawl. Otto put the vehicle into four-wheel drive before proceeding over a rocky washout, the truck canting dangerously to the left.

  Swift scowled. “You sure you know what the fuck you’re doing?”

  “Worry about your end,” Otto responded.

  “Look sharp, Carter.” Max gestured to the rear, where a labored engine sped up after clearing the swamp.

  “Fuck!” Otto shouted as the truck started to keel over into a ditch. They lurched violently to the right. The truck came to a complete stop as both wheels on the right side spun in two feet of mud.

  “Cover us, Flint,” Max ordered.

  He and Swift jumped from the truck to push it from the mire. Swift landed in the ditch and sunk to his thighs, while Max planted one foot in the ditch and the other on the rutted track. Tires spun and mud flew as the two massive men put their shoulders into the job. The truck lurched, inch by excruciating inch. Swift, sunk to the groin, lifted on the back bumper, which helped return the front tire to terra firma.

  Flint fired his rifle. Not good.

  Then the truck began moving in earnest, mud splattering Max in the face as Otto steered out of the ditch, pulling Swift, who clung to the back bumper, along with him.

  “Two vehicles,” Flint announced as they began bouncing along again. “The command car is following.”

  “Marvelous,” Max said. “Nail anybody?”

  “The driver on the lead vehicle. They’re moving again already.”

  After falling into a deep rut and getting stuck for a few seconds, Otto prudently slowed down. He rounded a sharp turn, forded a narrow creek, and headed up a steep grade on a short straightaway. The enemy drivers, obviously familiar with the road, navigated with ease, closing the gap.

  As they neared the top of the grade, Max saw the first enemy truck ford the stream at the bottom. Submachine guns opened up on them. Max knelt in the bed and attempted to shield Heat as best he could while returning fire. He blew out the windshield with the MAG, yet somehow missed the driver.

  Swift grunted a curse, threw down his Uzis and brought his M60 to bear.

  “RPG!” Flint shouted.

  Max saw the puff of smoke from the enemy truck, heard Flint shoot just a little too late. He dropped on top of Heat as the rocket exploded on the hill above, showering the truck with dirt and rocks.

  Otto drove on, rounded another tight turn, and then proceeded down a road embedded with watery ruts and sizeable rocks.

  “Otto, pass Heat your grenades,” Max ordered as they bounced along. He’d nearly exhausted the MAG’s ammo and the grenades for his own launcher.

  Otto complied, but their speed suffered as he dug out the munitions.

  Max was ready when the enemy truck roared around the bend. He popped off a shot with his M203 that detonated behind the truck, not damaging the vehicle but perhaps injuring a soldier or two.

  “Try again,” Swift said. He then unleashed another salvo with the M60. Bullets tore into the truck’s engine compartment, producing a cloud of steam from the radiator and stalling the vehicle.

  “Too easy.” Max fired another grenade.

  It hit the cab just as the soldiers in the bed bailed over the side. A couple of them went down from shrapnel; a couple more died courtesy of Carter and Flint’s fine shooting. The driver, his uniform afire, leaned out of the destroyed cab and fell flaming into a ditch.

  “And that’s that.” Max felt rather pleased.

  The command car would never make it past the burning truck blocking the road, neutralizing the human threats that followed them. Still they had no room to relax. They might be attacked by a dinosaur at any moment.

  “Shit, look!” Flint pointed to the burning truck, which somehow moved.

  Max ordered Otto to stop so he could ascertain just what the fuck was happening. The burning jeep nosed its way toward the edge of the embankment, then tumbled downhill into the jungle, propelled by a single individual lifting the rear bumper.

  “Holy screamin’ eagle shit,” Swift said. “He’s almost as strong as me.”

  “Smarter too, I’ll bet,” Max replied. “Get us out of here, Otto.”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” He gunned the engine and resumed the slow crawl uphill.

  Seconds later Max heard the burning truck explode somewhere down in the jungle.

  “Let’s blow the road.” Swift patted a pack by his side. “I got some C-4 left.”

  “Or use it to uproot a tree and block the road,” Flint suggested as they crept along.

  Max liked Flint’s idea better. Uphill he spotted a nice fat tree about eight feet in diameter. Let’s see lizard boy squat that. “Stop us here. That tree right there, Swift.”

  “On it.”

  Just as Swift put a leg over the side, thrashing foliage caught Max’s eye, followed by a gleaming purplish green. No...

  Every bit of twelve feet at the shoulder, a dinosaur burst from the undergrowth between the trees. Before Max could even point his rifle, the thing’s jaws descended toward Otto, its huge head smashing the truck’s windshield to pebbles of safety glass. Ju
stly terrified, Otto dropped to the cab floor and narrowly avoided the bite.

  Max and Swift opened fire on the beast as it attempted to root out Otto from his tenuous hiding spot. When their shots hit the creature’s neck, raising holes and showering them with blood, the dinosaur lifted its head with lightning quickness and snapped at Max, who dropped to his face in the truck bed.

  A cacophony of machinegun fire erupted, and the dinosaur fled into the jungle.

  Shaking from his flirt with death Otto again took the wheel. He set off at a perilous speed.

  Max remembered the reptilian from the clearing who had controlled the dinosaur with a remote. It’ll be back, whether it’s under control or just cruising for its next meal.

  Swift threw down his M60, empty, no belts remaining. He slammed a fresh mag into each of his Uzis. He’d liberated a shitload of 9mm ammo from the enemy.

  Bullets raked the side of the truck. The machine gunner atop the command car opened fire. To run them down that fast, the enemy driver knew every bump and rut in the trail. Perhaps thirty yards separated the vehicles now.

  Otto increased speed as the men in the bed returned fire. Max missed with another grenade, unable to aim worth a damn from the rocking truck. The enemy gunner’s mounted machinegun hit with far more accuracy, though Max noted with relief that his vehicle likewise had solid rubber tires that jostled the gunner relentlessly.

  The truck lurched and dropped under Max’s feet. When Otto sped out of the depression, one of the team fired forward. Otto bellowed a throaty roar that snapped Max’s attention to the road ahead. A dinosaur blocked the road mere feet in front of their speeding truck.

  This time the lizard stood its ground, accepting the challenge.

  In the last instant before they struck the dinosaur, Max thought of Heat, of the truck, of his life.

  But the impact never came.

  The agile beast vaulted over the truck. It landed behind them, whirled around to give chase. Flint staggered it with a well-aimed shot to the chest. Swift and Max followed suit, but their smaller-caliber bullets only snapped the thing out of its torpor and into a rage.