Kharon

by Wayne Marinovich

  Dropping his shoulder and swivelling to his left saved Gibbs, as the blade missed and sliced his forearm. The blond corporal screamed even louder and tried to head-butt him but found fresh air as his target swerved again. Gibbs grimaced from the pain in his arm, then raised the Glock to waist height and fired a single round into his attacker's stomach. The screaming stopped, and the man grimaced then groaned as he went down onto his knees.

  ‘For fuck sakes,’ Gibbs said, firing again to kill the attacker.

  Gibbs walked over to Warren.

  'You okay, Gibbs?'

  'Fine. Just nicked me, that’s all. Where did you see Butler?'

  Warren pointed to the open door on the other side of the walkway. Gibbs peered down at the door and saw Lord Butler step out and fire at the broken window with his shotgun. A circle of shattered glass made Gibbs jump back.

  Slowing his breathing down, the pain in his forearm dissipated with the adrenaline and he took the steps two at a time and arrived at the skyway door. Changing the magazine in his Glock, he peered through the door. A blast of shotgun pellets clattered into the door as he retreated. A second shell shattered what was left of the window in the door. Gibbs fired a few rounds through the gaping window across the metal traverse.

  'Smithy!' he shouted.

  Smithy and the two men came running down the stairs from the room above the lounge. 'There are only two young women up there, boss. Part of the warlord's harem, I think.'

  'And I guess that you thought you had better chat them up, did you,' Gibbs said.

  'You never know when you are going to die, boss.'

  'Get that grenade launcher of yours down there and fire one across into building four,' Gibbs said. 'I know that you’re lusting after the women right now, so please don't destroy the fucking skyway will you?'

  A smile crossed from ear to ear on Smithy's face.

  Gibbs stood to the side as Smithy stepped out into the doorway and launched a grenade across the divide. It fizzed through the opposite doorway and over a small group of the warlord's men who all dived to the ground. The tall soldier who was protecting Lord Butler stepped out and fired a volley back in their direction. Several shots hit him in the chest. Glass from the bank of windows blew outwards like a wave crashing on the beach, and screams of pain resonated from the building.

  'Go!' shouted Gibbs as he stepped forward and followed three men.

  In a low crouching run with weapons raised, they made their way across the skyway, struggling to keep their footing as the bridge bounced from side to side under their combined weight. Two men covered the door as Gibbs stepped inside the doorway and aimed his M27at a man who was rolling around on the floor. Sweeping from side to side, the men moved around the open floor. A large snooker table and dart board were in one corner across from a few couches set around a small bar against one of the walls. A place of recreation.

  'Clear, boss!' they shouted.

  Gibbs stood up and walked over to the sole survivor, who was grimacing in pain. Blood streaks across his face from the shrapnel blast, he held his shoulder that had crimson oozing between his fingers.

  'Where did that fucker Butler go?' Gibbs asked.

  'He has… has gone across into building five.'

  'Was the young blond boy with him?'

  The man shook his head. 'No. He’s with Woolf somewhere.'

  Chapter 39

  Roosevelt Island, New York, NY, USA- 2033

  Sweat ran down Lord Butler's temples and dripped down the back of his neck. Breathing with short constricting breaths, he wiped his face with his dusty sleeve. He walked down the stairs as quickly as he dared, grazing his stump on the course wall. Pain shot up his arm, and he groaned. Footsteps behind him made him jump. Turning, he realised that it was another of William's men.

  'Where is Noriega?

  ‘They got him, sir,’ the blond-haired soldier said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I am Hodgson. From South London.'

  'Well, Hodgson from London. You heard that big bloody explosion. Those are men who intend to kill us, so stay close and protect me. Is that clear?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Lord Butler walked to the landing between the floors and grabbed the ringing satphone. 'Yes, Woolf!'

  'One of my men has just radioed me to let me know that Andrei and his men have made it across into building one and have taken control of it after prolonged fighting. I suggest you and the Warlord get moving.'

  'I've killed that spineless fool already and am moving into building five, heading to the fifth-floor skyway.'

  'I am down on the fourth floor with the child plus a few men. Get down here, sir.'

  'No, my old friend. It's time to draw the traitors out of hiding in building six. Also, I want you to call the men who are stationed at the Styx warehouses in Boston. Make sure they burn the place down.'

  'Are you sure, sir, it would mean…?'

  'I know what it would mean, Woolf. Trust me, I don't want to destroy the stockpiled vaccine, but things have changed, and we must make sure that the virus gets a chance to spread before the professor can get more vaccines out there. We have to inflict as much pain as we can.'

  'I will make the call, sir.'

  'Thank you, my friend. It seems that this part of the adventure might just come to a premature end.'

  'Sir, we could make it to the boat that Christina came in on without being seen. It's beached on the north side of building six. I have a team who could meet us on the Manhattan side again.'

  'Okay. That might work as an escape plan, but first, I want to inflict pain on the people who have wronged us. I will not run until they have suffered as we all have,' Lord Butler said and walked into the fifth-floor apartment. 'I want you to take the boy out onto the fourth-floor skyway, but only after you have seen me cross.'

  'Okay, sir. I am loaded and ready.'

  Lord Butler handed his Beretta and shotgun to the man following him. 'Load these for me please, Hodgson.'

  The man loaded the guns as Lord Butler looked around at the vacant space that had once served as a plush apartment to a New York family. It smelled of human excrement and was littered with rubbish and other debris. The small kitchen was white, but minus all the cabinets that had been removed for firewood.

  'Ahem! All done, sir.'

  'Stay at the stairwell, Hodgson, and don't be afraid to use those grenades you have. Your enemy won't think twice about blowing you up.’

  'Gladly, sir.'

  Lord Butler straightened his jacket and clipped the shotgun back onto its strap before hiding it in his long jacket again. Walking towards the aluminium door, he looked out through the grimy window at building six. Two people were scurrying about inside.

  He grabbed the skyway door handle. 'Let the games begin,' he said to himself.

  The wind buffeted him, and he strode out onto the silver metal walkway. Taking a few long strides, he heard a door open on the floor below him. Raising his Beretta, he pointed it at the silver door at the other end of the skyway. It swung open.

  Christina stepped out, dressed in army fatigues, her blonde ponytail flicking to one side of her head. The darkness swirled with happiness within in his head as he looked down the barrel of her M27. His right forefinger rubbed the Beretta trigger. He could shoot her right there. The darkness wouldn't let him. She has to suffer.

  The short, stocky figure of the man they called Shredder, stepped out behind her. Gibbs's Scottish attack dog. The same bastard who had locked him up in the London basement and left him to rot. Lord Butler's top lip twitched.

  'Francis, drop the gun and let's talk,' Christina shouted.

  Lord Butler slowly shook his head.

  'Where is Stuart?' she asked.

  'Shut up, Christina!' he yelled above the wind, taking a step towards her. 'I’ll do all the talking from now.'

  Shredder stepped out from behind Christina, his Glock levelled at the advancing man. 'Stay right there, you crazy fuckwit.'

  'Christina, I advise you to
keep your lap dog in check or it will be Stuart who suffers.'

  She placed her hand on Shredder’s arm. 'You're surrounded, Francis, and your men are falling around you. Give it up and end all of this killing.'

  'So you think it all ends like that, do you, Christina?' he said with a smile. Taking a few steps towards her, he nodded his head in the direction of the railing. 'Have a little look at the skyway below, and let's see if you are still so confident after that.'

  • • •

  Christina's nerves fizzed as she looked into the eyes of a man she had once loved like a father. They were dark, cold and only filled with hate. Or was it serenity? The serenity of someone with nothing to lose?

  'I have you covered, Christina,' Shredder whispered.

  She slowly stepped to the right and looked down to the skyway below. The air was sucked out of her lungs, and her hand shot up to her mouth. 'Stuart!' she screamed and gripped one of the suspension cables which held up the sides of the skyway.

  On the skyway below stood Woolf, smiling at her, a long silver blade pressed to her son's throat. The little boy was crying with fear, and she felt the anger rising inside her.

  'Don't hurt him, Woolf,' she shouted down. 'Please don't hurt him.'

  The tall blond laughed at her, not taking his eyes off hers.

  'Keep Butler occupied,' Shredder whispered and walked backwards towards the door. 'I'll get the wee fella.'

  'Woolf, you will be getting company soon,' Lord Butler screamed and took another step towards Christina. 'Drop your weapons, Christina. I won't ask you again. I'll just have to give the command, and you can watch your son bleed to death from here.'

  The sound of metal on metal drifted on the wind as she dropped the gun onto the skyway.

  Chapter 40

  Roosevelt Island, New York, NY, USA- 2033

  'Sshhhhhh…' Gibbs said as he grabbed Warren's arm to quieten him. They were standing in the centre of the recreation room. 'There are voices from outside somewhere.'

  Over the buffeting sounds of slamming doors and window, someone was shouting outside. Tiptoeing to the top floor windows of building five, they reached the skyway door and looked outwards.

  'Oh my God,' Warren said and withdrew his hand off the door handle like it had been scalded.

  It felt like a sledgehammer blow had just hit Gibbs in the chest. On the skyway below them was the thin figure of Lord Butler, dressed in the long black jacket which fluttered in the stiff breeze. His Beretta was raised out in front of him. A few metres ahead of him was Christina, her empty hands held up in front of her.

  'What should we do now, Gibbs?' Warren asked.

  Gibbs looked down at Christina's feet and saw that she had dropped her weapons on the skyway. Something was up, and then he saw Butler glance over the skyway railing edge and down to his left. Gibbs moved along the bank of windows for a few metres and then stopped.

  'Stuart!' he whispered. Cold fear flushed through him, and he couldn’t move. His mind spun with all the options open to him at that point.

  Warren ran over and looked down to the fourth-floor skyway below all of them. The tall blond figure stood in old Phoenix Council khaki fatigues holding Stuart.

  'Jesus, he does look like Markus, doesn't he,' Gibbs said. 'Well, that will make it even easy to kill him.'

  'Let me go down there, Gibbs. You cannot save both of them.’

  Gibbs stood in silence for a while.

  'I want to take care of him. For Kat. She was innocent in all this, so please let me get this bastard.'

  Gibbs looked at the young man whom he had met eight years before, a thin teenage resistance fighter. He was a different man now. 'Okay, Warren, but don’t let him get close to you with that knife. I have a feeling he can use it. Stuart is short, so go for the head or chest shot. Don't hesitate when you get the chance.'

  'What will you do?'

  'I'll get Christina,' Gibbs said. 'I suspect that Butler wants a dramatic ending to this. That’s how his twisted thinking works, so he won't stop until we are all dead.'

  'Are you walking down to the floor below?'

  'No, I am going to try something different. I am going to jump from this floor’s skyway to the one below.'

  'What?'

  'I have made bigger jumps. It is only a gap of about four metres, and it's a downwards trajectory, so it's a lot less. In fact, I will have to watch that I don't over jump it.’

  'That’s bloody crazy, Gibbs. If you land badly, you could break something. Never mind if you miss the walkway. The fall will bloody kill you. Have you seen the rock below us?'

  'Yes, but Butler won't be expecting it, and that is what I am counting on. He will have prepared himself for someone coming out of either door. I'll wait until you get out onto the fourth-floor skyway. That will draw their attention a little.'

  Warren shook his head and started to walk towards the stairwell, stepping over Hodgson's body. 'Good luck, mate. I won't be able to help if it goes wrong.'

  'Just keep your focus on Stuart. And kill the German.'

  Gibbs looked at the two NAG soldiers who were standing near the stairwell. 'Both of you, go back across the buildings and meet up with Smithy. Tell him to contact Andrei Kirilenko and tell him where we are.'

  They both nodded and left.

  Walking slowly to the skyway door, he placed both hands on the handle. All the other skyway doors had been yanked open by the wind, so he had to do this quietly. Pressing downwards slowly, he heard the click of the release. Leaning back, he let the wind take the door. It strained against him, and he felt like a teenager windsurfing again. Walking through the door as it swung open, he stepped out and pushed it closed behind him. Crouching next to the covered side of the skyway, he peered downwards through one of the small gaps in the metal cladding made from scavenged material. Lord Butler had moved closer to Christina, who glared back at him as he kicked away the pistol and machine gun from her reach. They were talking. Gibbs could see the fear and hatred in her demeanour.

  Voices below them made Lord Butler and Christina look over the edge. She said something, and then Lord Butler poked her in the chest with his Beretta.

  'Warren, stay out of this, please,' she shouted.

  Gibbs stood up and climbed on the thin railing. Feeling stable, he jumped and felt his heart stop as the small railing buckled backwards, not giving him the push off he expected. The wind whistled past his ears as he fell, and the skyway rushed up towards him. He was going to fall short. Twisting his body to stretch out one hand, he grabbed a cable that ran along the nearside of the skyway. The pain in his forearm from the knife wound pulsed up as his body swung around under the skyway. His momentum swung him right underneath it and crashed his feet into the cladding on the other side before he started to swing back again. The skyway rocked from side to side as he groaned and pulled himself up with his left arm until he could reach for a thick strut beneath the walkway. Swinging to his right, he switched grip with his left hand, grabbed another strut and then turned himself around to face building six. A flick outwards with his legs allowed him to swing to the edge of the walkway, where he could hook his left arm through one of the side's vertical stanchions.

  Looking up, he saw the figure of Lord Butler had pinned Christina up against the railing with his body. Her upper body was precariously hanging over the suspension cable that held up the fragile railings. One of her arms flailed in the wind as she tried to twist up to get a grip on the metal cable. Gibbs gasped as her eyes stared around with fear. Looking back at the skeletal features of Lord Butler, he saw the maniac grinning back at him down the Beretta sights.

  'Welcome, Captain Gibbs,' he shouted. 'I think you should take a deep breath before you do something stupid. You wouldn’t want Christina or Stuart's death on your hands, would you?'

  Gibbs looked below at the swirling river that was starting to flood back in. Small muddy waves crashed on the jagged rocks covering them in a slimy brown broth. He was not going to die on the rocks, n
ot without a fight.

  'Get rid of the pistol, Gibbs,' Lord Butler shouted. 'Let me see you drop it, please.'

  Gibbs held up the Glock in his hand by its grip, then let it drop to the rocks below. Staring into the dark eyes of Lord Butler, he felt the pain throbbing in his left arm but it was all that was keeping him from falling. Glancing downwards, he saw his second Glock still in its holster, Velcro'd to his chest webbing.

  • • •

  Adrenaline pumped through Woolf's body as he lifted Stuart off his feet and held him around his waist. Looking up at the hanging Gibbs, he imagined the man stabbing his brother and letting him sink to the bottom of the sea. Anger welled up in him. Revenge would be sweet. He slipped the large hunting knife into its scabbard and reached for the holstered Beretta on his belt. A quick glance at the young man they called Warren made him realise that the kid would not take the shot, or he would already have done so. So you are not a real killer.

  Raising the Beretta, he aimed at the lower torso and legs of Gibbs as they hung off the other side of the skyway. He squeezed the trigger.

  Stuart was not a big child, but he started wriggling as the gun went off. The bullet missed Gibbs by a metre.

  'Arrrgh…be still, child!' he shouted and tried to aim again. Instinct warned him of imminent danger, and then he heard the heavy clacking of boots on the metal walkway. There were milliseconds between each step. The person was running. Quickly.

  He glanced across at Warren, whose eyes were slowly widening. Then a force smashed into his back, and his head whipped backwards as he and Stuart were launched forward onto their stomachs.

  Pushing the child away he reached for his knife, his fingers closed on the handle. A sharp and piercing pain shot down his legs. Pain unlike any he had ever experienced before. Pain from a knife being driven into his back, all the way up to the hilt, then it was wrenched out again. He felt himself cry out with pain and then went limp for a few seconds.

  'Dying by the knife, just like your pathetic brother,' the Scottish accent of the pig they called Shredder snarled into his ear.