Night Strike

by Rodney Mountain

  I went to a lawyer the next day and had the papers drawn up. I used the three hundred I had gotten from Coleman as cash to pay him and have the papers sent to Myrna. They were returned less than two days later. Once it was official, I cashed the money order and explained to my creditors the situation. I paid them all off, with interest and sold the store itself to a young couple from Toledo.

  I built a small cabin in the lot that I had rented to Mike and Amy and lived in the first peace and quiet that I had known since I had married Myrna after knocking her up in 1959. I continue to operate the campground as a part time deal, keeping receipts in a lock box and doing business from the front porch of my small cabin.

  The store flourished with the young couple, and the campground flourished since I had the time and energy to keep it up. I’m in my mid-seventies now, but I still keep the campground going, as I love it.

  I haven’t seen Myrna in ten years and to be honest I don’t miss her a bit. I lived with her for 45 years and am glad she’s gone. I spent less than a week with Mike Coleman and I still miss him and Amy to this day.

  I guess that goes to show priorities. I guess it also goes to show how much better life goes when you are living it how you want to, not how you’re supposed to.

  Free Fall

  Free Fall was the first time I tried to use Mason, Karen and Jim after the first version of The Accidental Immortal was complete. It is a bloody and somewhat amusing story, but not the best constructed one I have done. I think this was one of my last attempts to do a first person perspective story.

  This story was told from Mason's view, as were all the first person perspective stories done with that team. It was the easiest way to learn to write, but it turned out too limiting in the long run. It was easier to get the story right without worrying about what was going on in their heads.

  One more note that I realized while actually rereading it to clean it up. This was written before the 9/11 attacks in the US, which is why the events on the plane went like they did.

  Those of you that have read the main books will recognize the beginning of this story, as I repurposed the events in The Immortal Progression. Back then I had a nasty propensity to write long past what should have been the end of the story and boy does this one show it. I still leave it intact for you to read as it is an interesting look into my early writing style in a method that isn't nearly as embarrassing as the original versions of The Healy Murders or The Accidental Immortal (the latter of which luckily no longer exists to my knowledge).

  -Rodney Mountain 7/28/2011

  Chapter 1

  Flying first class is always fun. Jim, Karen and I had done it many times over the years, and it certainly beat getting crammed into a small coach seat like cattle in a pen.

  The three of us were running from a rather embarrassing incident in Africa in which the mercenary company we were working with turned out to be the bad guys. Being immortal as the three of us are, we were the only survivors of the raid that we had informed the rebels about beforehand.

  Immortality can be fun at times, but it does bring on some nasty situations at times. We had been in this condition for many years by this point, so disappearing had become second nature to us. We slipped out of the capital of that little nation with U.N. investigators hot on our heels. Luckily, I was smart enough to set up new identification that we could use if necessary.

  We were on our way to Denmark, figuring that we could use a break from the world’s hotspots. I bumped us up to first class on the plane from Morocco so that we could truly relax. James was already on his sixth glass of champagne, while Karen and I watched him.

  "You have to give Jim credit," Karen said with a chuckle, "When he goes for it, he goes all out."

  "Why not?" I replied, "We’re in first class, so it’s free."

  Karen had been my partner for a long time, ever since we first attained immortality many years before. I’ll spare you the story right now, as it was a comedy of errors that I hope will never be surpassed. She’s tall, usually blonde and has been steady as a rock for me ever since she made the fateful decision to join me.

  Jim was a different story. He was actually part of the team that created the infernal slop that pushed me into immortality. A thoroughly amoral person in his old life, he used the serum on himself once he knew what he had. It took a 12-gauge attitude adjustment to kill James. When he woke up he was a completely different person, one who had been with me ever since.

  We had been flying for about forty-five minutes when we heard a commotion coming from coach. I was tempted to get up to find out what was going on, but Karen had had enough of me playing Boy Scout for a while and put her hand on my shoulder to keep me down.

  We both looked back and waited for it to die down. After a few minutes a young, fairly well dressed man burst into the room holding an assault rifle. I had to fight my urge to stand up and face him. Karen and I watched him shout something unintelligible. It wasn’t Arabic because I would have recognized that. It sounded vaguely Russian, so I guessed it was probably some Slavic based language. The intent of what the man was saying was, particularly clear. He was intending to take control of the plane.

  Jim hadn’t even noticed the commotion, he was too busy drinking and trying to talk the young woman in the next seat into joining the mile high club with him. The terrorist woke Jim up quickly by smacking him upside the head with the butt of his rifle. Jim looked up and folded up quick, he knew better than to challenge a terrorist head-on when he’s already pissed.

  The initial phase of the hijacking was over within five minutes. It was bloodless for the most part, with only two shootings, neither of which was fatal. The first class passengers, the three of us included, were herded into the coach section and jammed into the little seats. I managed to stay with Karen and Jim, though I was forced against the wall because I was bigger than them.

  I had been a hostage many years before during a bank robbery, an experience that I really didn’t enjoy. I really hoped that I would be able to do something about it this time around. Karen looked at me, but didn’t say a word. Her blue eyes were showing the concern and the strain. Jim’s brown eyes were burning with hatred for the situation, but he too was showing unaccustomed restraint.

  There were four or five terrorists in the plane. Two of them were in the back watching the hostages. The other three were off doing god knows what, for I have no clue where they ran off to. The two goons were imposing strict silence on us with their weapons. We were able to communicate a little when their backs were turned, but other than that communication was patently impossible.

  Finally, a voice came over the intercom. We assumed he was their leader because he spoke with authority and he wasn’t the pilot. He made his speech in French, one of the few major European languages that I still couldn’t order a glass of wine in. Karen, our resident language expert, translated what our captors said when she could. They were part of one of the many terrorist groups in Europe and that we should be honored to be part of their cause.

  Karen couldn’t translate word for word, but the gist of it was that they were trying to bring attention to their pathetic cause. I knew I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I could do from a cramped coach seat. I guess I wasn’t the only person on the plane with that idea, however. One man, a younger person with a lower class British accent, demanded that he be released.

  I knew he was a dead man when he stood up and demanded his rights. One of the terrorists, a very severe looking man with more muscles than brains raised his weapons. Me, being the reluctant hero that I usually end up being, had to do something. I jumped up out of my seat and rushed for the young Englishman to push him to the floor.

  The two terrorists in the cabin saw me move and raised their weapons. The Englishman had enough sense to hit the floor when he saw the weapons go up. I didn’t have a chance, their streams of lead started to pound me in the chest. I
must have taken about a dozen rounds before I hit the ground. It hurt like a bitch, but mercifully I passed out soon after.

  Chapter 2

  Soon after I woke up I looked around to see where I was. I turned my head slowly and saw another body. It seems that I did little but prolong the Englishman’s life by a minute or two. He had wounds similar to the holes that perforated my shirt. Unfortunately for him he didn’t have the luxury of being able to regenerate fatal wounds like I did.

  It seems that the dead bodies were being brought down to the cargo area, an unexpected benefit. They didn’t bother to detail a person to guard corpses and cargo. I stood up slowly and tested my feet. I was still a little wobbly, but the wounds were still healing. I figured the scarring would go away in the next ten minutes or so.

  I pulled off my destroyed and bloody shirt and tossed it on the floor next to the Englishman’s corpse. I finally found my luggage, or at least what little we’d been able to salvage from our African misadventure, and pulled out my jacket and a fresh shirt. I also retrieved the composite knife that is invisible to x-ray and metal detection. A blade weapon was better than nothing.

  I went quietly up towards the front of the plane to try to figure out what was going on in the passenger areas. I was about to make my way to the lower galley area when I heard some motion on the stairs. I slid into the corner and watched as one of the terrorists came down and helped himself to the food that was originally intended for the passengers.

  I looked up the stairway and made sure that no one else was coming down. I gripped the knife tightly in my right hand and slid silently up behind the gorging terrorist. I quickly wrapped my left arm around his throat and put the knife to his temple.

  "Do you speak English?" I asked the surprised terrorist.

  He obviously didn’t because he decided to try to fight me. He tried to swing his weapon back to fire. Unfortunately for him, I was faster. I pushed my knife into the soft area of his temple, ending his life quickly and quietly before he could even scream. I dragged the dead terrorist into the back and dropped his sorry corpse onto the pile.

  "One down," I muttered to no one in particular, "Four to go."

  I picked up the assault rifle that the terrorist had been carrying. I unloaded it, checked the breech and made sure it was sound. They weren’t very well trained, that was for sure. The weapon was badly taken care of and probably would have jammed had he tried to fire it again.

  I spent a couple minutes cleaning out the weapon as best I could with what was down there. I knew that it wouldn’t be too long before the others came looking for their now deceased friend. When I had the weapon put back together I locked it into single shot to make sure that I didn’t accidentally depressurize the plane.

  I listened to the activity upstairs and crept slowly up the stairs. I poked my head above the edge of the stairwell and looked for the terrorists. All I saw was a frightened stewardess. I put my finger to my lips and looked out the doors into the first class. The first class section was evidently where their special prisoners went, because there were two or three badly beaten people there.

  I looked out into the coach section and saw little had changed. The same two terrorists who had been guarding the passengers when I’d been shot were still there. That left two unaccounted for. I was betting that one was in the first class section that I couldn’t see and probably one sitting with the pilots to make sure that they followed the head terrorist’s orders.

  I looked to the back and saw that Karen and Jim were still sitting together in the back. I was about to try to signal them when I heard someone talking in First Class behind me.

  I didn’t understand a word that they said, but it was obvious that one of them was aggravated. Soon after the conversation stopped one of them came towards me. I slid back down the stairs and got down behind the edge of them. I realized then that the terrorist was sure to see the pool of blood that came from when I killed the first one.

  I cursed to myself for a second and hoped that he would still come down here. My luck was still with me because he did. He saw the pool of blood and kept going in, looking for his friend. I crept up slowly behind him and decided to use the quiet method. I used the butt of the rifle to knock the guy out.

  I laid the unconscious body out over the others and then reached down to slit his throat. I didn’t want any chance of him waking up again. I was down two terrorists and still had three to go. Not insurmountable odds, but they still had the ability to depressurize the plane with a single shot.

  I searched the new corpse and took a silenced 9mm pistol. This was a find, for sure. It also proved that not all of them were complete amateurs. I checked the weapon out and found it to be in much better shape than the assault rifle had been. He had two clips of ammunition for it, though if I had to use more than one clip I was in big trouble.

  I crept back up the stairs and looked back into coach. Nobody had noticed what I had done down there. I looked into first class and saw that the other terrorist was not there. My guess was that he was still in the cockpit.

  I debated on what to do next and found that there was really no choice. Once I got control of the cockpit I could take the other two out quickly in a frontal assault. As soon as Karen and Jim saw me they would be able to help.

  I slipped into first class, signaling to everyone in there to keep quiet. I asked one of the more coherent ones where the terrorists were. Since he didn’t speak English the transaction had to be conducted in my rusty German. After a few confused seconds he confirmed my suspicion that the last one up front was in the cockpit.

  I hushed them all up and walked quietly to the front Stewardess station. I head the leader conversing with the pilots, who were arguing about something with them. I knew this conversation was in French, but couldn’t understand it. I peeked in and saw that the terrorist had his back to the door, his final, fatal, mistake.

  I aimed the silenced weapon at his skull and pulled the trigger twice in succession. The terrorist never even knew what hit him as the front of his skull splattered all over the control panels in front of him.

  There was a brief moment of confusion until I managed to hit upon a language that both the pilot and myself understood. Unfortunately, my Russian was exceedingly rusty and it took a few seconds for me to explain myself.

  "Who are you?" the pilot asked me, "Where did you come from?"

  "Don’t ask," I said in my halting Russian, "Keep the plane on your current course. I’m going to take out the two holding the passengers hostage."

  The pilot merely nodded and he and the copilot went about cleaning the control panels so they could see what they were doing again. I walked slowly back to the coach stewardess station and motioned for the frightened woman to go back into first class. I put in another clip and got ready to deal with the two morons in coach.

  I looked out and waited for the two terrorists to not be looking forward. I poked my head out in hopes that either Karen or Jim would see me. I wasn’t disappointed, as Karen made eye contact with me and jabbed Jim in the ribs so he’d do the same. As soon as that was taken care of, I slipped back behind the partition and got my nerve up to finish this.

  I was still hoping to take both of them out without either one getting a shot off. One stray shot would depressurize the plane and probably kill everyone on board, save Karen, Jim and Myself. I held my breath for a second and leaned over slightly to look at the tactical situation again.

  I knew instantly that it was time to strike. The one in front was facing me, but the one in back was looking at the back rows. I stepped out into the aisle and fired two quick silenced shots into the face of the forward most terrorist. It wasn’t the shots, but the screams of the passengers that made the other one turn around.

  Jim was up and out of his seat quickly and heading for the rear terrorist. I pulled my trigger, but my first shot was wide. I was lucky and the shot hit the rear bathroom wa
ll and not one of the outside walls. Jim got in the way of the terrorist’s weapon and took the initial burst from it in the stomach. My next two shots were dead on target, as the terrorist fell down beside Jim.

  I walked through the plane and made sure that I hadn’t missed any of the bad guys. My initial count had been correct. There were only five of them on the plane. I removed the weapon from the terrorist’s hand and put it aside. Karen helped me get Jim clear and laid out on a seat in first class.

  "You missed," Jim groaned as we laid him out.

  "You didn’t," I said as I sat down next to him, "You’ll heal, the plane won’t."

  "What do we do now?" Karen asked me, "I think there’s about to be a riot back there."

  "You speak French," I said, "I don’t. Go tell the pilots that they have control again and then help the stewardesses get the people under control. I’ll deal with Jim."

  "Deal with me how?" he asked, "I’ll heal up on my own in a few minutes."

  "Do you really want to show the whole plane that fact, Jim?" I asked him, "We’re already going to have enough problems with me coming back from the dead."

  "Cargo hold," Jim muttered through clenched teeth, "Let’s go down there."

  I nodded and helped him up. He was able to walk this time, but slowly and he needed someone to keep him stable. I brought him down to the lower cargo area and we sat down on some of the luggage that I’d gone through earlier.

  Chapter 3

  "What kind of moron hijacks a plane in this day and age?" Jim asked me as he recovered, "The odds of surviving it, even in a third world country, are slim to none these days."

  "I don’t know," I replied, "But there was something odd about this group."

  "What’s that?" he asked, "Other than the fact that they did it in the first place."

  "The leader and one of the others were professional," I said, "Their weapons were clean and much nicer than the others. The other three were thugs, plain and simple. They had cheap assault rifles, dirty ones at that, and no discipline. If the two in the back had been professionals, I never would have been able to jump them like that."