Mason added more pressure to the metal stabbing up under Anton’s fleshy chin. “Where the fuck is my family? I won’t ask again.”
“Please, Sarge! We need him! He has the cure for this thing that’s destroying the world!”
If his family was gone, Mason honestly didn’t care what happened to the rest of the world. He’d just about decided to squeeze the trigger when voices from inside the building echoed up the stairwell. He recognized them at once. He drew back and whipped the grip into Anton’s temple sending him crashing to the deck.
He ran inside just as Beth rounded the staircase with her arm under Theresa’s, helping their daughter up. Elio and Noor helped Maria along behind them. Maria saw him and scowled. Her hate would have to wait. He hurried down the stairs and picked Theresa up in his arms.
“Go!” Beth shouted. “They are coming up after us!”
Mason didn’t need to know who the they were. Their inchoate shrieking echoed up the stairwell. He carried Theresa up the last flight and out onto the roof. Iridia knelt beside her father stroking his cheek and blubbering.
“Miro, find something to barricade the door!”
“Copy that,” Miro said as he cast around for something suitable.
“Are you okay?” Mason asked Theresa as he laid her gently on the deck as far from the roof access door as possible.
She stared past him with unresponsive, bloodshot eyes.
“Honey?”
She broke into a coughing fit. Blood flecked from her lips onto Mason’s face. Her skin glowed with a pale sheen. Red veins traced through the whites of her eyes. He wiped away the gathering sweat above her eyebrows. Her forehead nearly burned his fingertips.
“You’re evil!” Beth screamed from behind.
Mason turned to see Beth leap at Anton. Her right fist broke through his upraised arms and smashed into his nose. Red exploded down over his chin and onto a wrinkled shirt and coat. She connected with a right hook to his ear before Mason dragged her back.
Elio and Noor helped Maria out onto the deck. “They aren’t far behind!” he said as he moved the trio away from the door.
A growing hum of shouting and shrieking echoed up the stairwell.
“You murderer!” Beth spat at Anton. “You did it!”
“Beth,” Mason said into her ear. “What are you talking about?”
His words distracted her bloodlust and she calmed a little. She answered in words dripping with hate. “He created the Delta Virus.”
“What?” Mason and Miro said in unison.
Beth stopped straining to get free. Her animal mind relinquished control back to her thinking mind. “He did it.” She waved her hands around. “He did all of this. He’s insane.”
Anton wiped at the blood streaming out of his nose. The terror in his eyes flashed to fury. “Insane?” he shouted. “I’m insane?” He spat blood onto the deck.
“You destroyed mankind!” Beth said.
“I saved mankind! That you don’t see it is no great surprise.”
“Papa? What do you mean?” Iridia froze as she tried to understand his meaning.
Mason couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d never believed the conspiracy theories. Surely the virus had been a freak of nature? A freak of biological potential that humanity knew always existed but hoped would never arise.
Miro ran to the door with a metal pipe he’d found. He slammed the door shut and wedged it between the door handle and nearby conduit. It wasn’t going to hold forever. Maybe not even for long. Miro drew his ankle pistol and covered the door. He looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Feels uncomfortably like the Alamo, huh Sarge?”
Only a dyed-in-the-wool Texan could make light of their dire situation. It was one of the things that Mason appreciated most during their tour in the sandbox.
Mason released Beth now that she appeared to be in control again. He kept the forty-five aimed at Anton’s chest. “Talk.”
Anton glared at him disdainfully, as if the pistol pointed at his chest didn’t exist. “Your wife was partially correct. I did, in fact, create the Delta Virus, or what should more properly be called the Darwin Virus.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Anton asked incredulously. “Because our wisdom had yet to catch up with our technology. We were the most successful cancer the world has ever seen. We were killing our host. And like any parasite, we would’ve all died when the host died.”
It took every ounce of resolve for Mason not to pull the trigger until the slide locked back. “You’re insane.”
Anton laughed. “Every genius in history has been called insane by the mediocre minds surrounding him. Truly great men rise above the petty concerns of the merely average. Am I insane not to have wasted my life in a haze of mindless consumption?”
“No,” Mason said. “You’re insane because you think killing mankind is the way to save it.”
Anton wiped at the blood dripping from his chin. “You’re a fool to believe anything else could have. You misunderstand an evolutionary truth of our species. We choose comfort over pain. We choose the known over the unknown. These two primal urges paired together guaranteed we would never take either sufficient or timely action to save the host, and hence ourselves.”
“People were starting to get it,” Beth said.
Anton laughed derisively. “Changing lightbulbs and dumping Amazon boxes in recycling bins were their solutions. The ones everyone could get behind. Pathetic. It changed nothing. Worse, it made people feel effective even as humanity continued to fall.”
“And so you decided to handle oblivion yourself?”
“I pre-empted the inevitable, desperate madness. The decline that would’ve brought mankind back to the dark ages or worse. All that we’d struggled for lost to darkness and degradation.”
“How is what you did any different?”
“We now have a chance to move forward, replete with relative abundance, while still retaining our technological and intellectual achievements. The planet requires time to heal and our reduced population will offer it that respite. By the time we have regained our previous peak, we will have gained the wisdom to sustainably coexist with it.”
“You’re twisted.”
“I’m a realist. I don’t live in the fantasy that mankind can somehow live apart from the world that sustains it.”
Enough of this bullshit. While some of what this guy said rang with truth, killing off most of mankind wasn’t the solution.
“Where’s the cure?” Mason asked. The bigger picture stuff could wait. His daughter desperately needed help.
“Here!” Beth said as she dug a vial out of her pocket.
The door shook as the first few deltas encountered the barrier between themselves and their prey. Their primal rage spilled through the door.
The faint sound of rotor blades chewing through the air drew Mason’s attention. He scanned the horizon to the north and saw a huge chopper heading their way. A VH-3D Sea King by the looks of it.
“You expecting company?” he asked.
Anton grinned and nodded.
Shit. Two handguns weren’t going to last long against an assault team.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
MASON grabbed Anton by the collar. He had every intention of killing the sorry son of a bitch, but he didn’t want to waste an advantage if the approaching chopper improved the situation from a last stand at the Alamo to a Mexican standoff.
While he knew he could count on Miro, two pistols against a team of six or more operators carrying battle rifles barely qualified as a standoff. Maybe it was just a different version of the Alamo.
The only advantage he had was the forty-five pointed at their boss’s chest. Maybe he could negotiate terms.
It wasn’t a great plan, but the chopper was closing in fast and Mason couldn’t think of any better ideas.
“Miro, guard them!” he shouted. “Everyone else, stay down!”
“Copy that, Sarge!” Miro said as he took up a
position near the others.
Mason shoved Anton forward, purposefully yanking him around to keep him stumbling and off-balance. He climbed up the ladder to the helipad, pulling Anton up after him. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Anton smiled at the approaching chopper. “Put down your weapon and I won’t have my men kill you and your family.”
Mason slammed a clenched fist into his solar plexus. Anton dropped to his knees gasping for breath.
“Threaten my family again and you’ll die first.” He yanked Anton to his feet and wrapped an arm under his neck and pulled tight. He didn’t have proper body armor, but this would do.
The chopper pulled in fast and flared hard to touch down soft as a feather on the helipad. Eight men in desert camo with United States flag patches on their chests filed out of the cabin and set up firing positions. The center of their perimeter had their HK 416 rifles zeroed on Mason and Anton. One of the soldiers turned and waved at the chopper. His right shoulder had an army green arrow-shaped patch with a black dagger on it.
These weren’t like the others. These were Army guys. Specifically 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta. These were some serious motherfuckers. Way beyond Anton’s pay grade.
Two more soldiers jumped out of the cabin. They helped a tall, lanky man in an immaculate dark blue suit step out onto the helipad. He wore thin-framed fashionable glasses of a matching color. His bald head would’ve given him away if Mason hadn’t already recognized him. He strode toward Mason as if he owned the world.
Which made sense because he mostly did.
Gabriel Cruz. The world’s wealthiest man. The same man Mason had inadvertently saved from that mad dog gang leader.
He came to a stop ten feet away from Mason. The Delta operators stayed between the two parties with their rifles never wavering from their chosen targets. Mason had no doubt that if he turned the gun from Anton to Gabriel, his head would end up like a watermelon at a Gallagher comedy show. Only he sure as hell wouldn’t be laughing.
“Mr. West,” Gabriel said. “Let’s dispense with the theatrics. We are both reasonable men.” He took another few steps forward with his hands raised.
“Mr. President, please maintain a safe distance,” the operator standing next to him said.
Mr. President?
Gabriel waved him off. “I have nothing to fear from this man. He saved my life less than two weeks ago.”
“All the same, sir, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”
“Captain Whitaker, you will do your job and I will do mine. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Anton reached for his boss. “Thank you for coming for me! This madman wants to kill me!”
Gabriel’s good humor melted away until only ice remained. “Then he and I are in agreement. You betrayed me. You overstepped your limited authority.”
“I did what needed to be done,” Anton replied. The imperious weight in his voice cracked mid-sentence. It rose in pitch and wavered. “Surely you of all people must see that.”
“I see that you are unhinged, and that my trust in you was a grievous error in judgement. I will not repeat the mistake.”
Gabriel looked at Mason. “Would you mind placing your weapon on the ground? You don’t require the leverage and there would be none even if you did. Besides, I think these fellows would feel much better about it.”
Mason didn’t see the advantage in not complying. It sounded like Gabriel could offer them help. He lowered the pistol, making sure the muzzle didn’t cover anywhere near Gabriel’s direction. He released his neck lock on Anton who gasped and sputtered to get more air into his lungs.
“I’ve come for the serum, Anton. Where is it?” Gabriel said.
“My wife has it,” Mason said. “We have people on the deck below, but we have a big problem.”
“What is that?”
“Deltas are about to break through the door below and out onto the roof.”
“How many?” Gabriel said.
Mason glanced at the soldiers flanking the president. “More than your firepower can handle.”
Captain Whitaker narrowed his eyes at Mason. “Sir, we can handle it.”
“Captain, I’m not doubting you or your men. But this isn’t the safest position for the president to be in.”
Mason knew as well as any soldier the drive to take it to the enemy. But he also knew the cost of losing men in the effort. And there was zero chance Captain Whitaker would put the president in danger no matter his personal feelings.
Gabriel turned to his detail’s CO. “Captain, get those people aboard.”
“Yes, sir!”
Before the captain could get his men in motion, gunfire erupted on the deck below.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
Mason ran to the edge of the helipad and saw the nightmare unfolding below. Deltas dashed through the opened roof access door.
BANG. BANG.
“Get to the ladder,” Miro shouted as he dropped one. He covered the rear of the group as everyone hurried to the ladder. Several deltas followed close behind.
Miro dropped another. Mason fired from above, knocking down a couple about to overwhelm his friend.
Still more bodies surged out onto the roof. There were too many, and there was no place to retreat from the top of a skyscraper.
Captain Whitaker and several operators appeared at Mason’s side as the deltas below encircled the group trying to get up the ladder. Beth struggled to help Theresa up. An operator slid down the ladder and hefted Theresa over his shoulder. He headed back up and Beth followed.
“Fire for effect,” the captain shouted above the thumping chopper and the screaming chaos.
Mason’s ears rang with the concussion of numerous rifles letting loose a withering barrage on the deltas below. He ran to the ladder as the operator carrying Theresa appeared on the top rung. The soldier heaved her over, knocking Mason’s forty-five out of his hands. The pistol clattered to the concrete.
Mason ignored it and helped his daughter onto the helipad. He passed her off to a waiting soldier and then pulled Beth up with Clyde around her neck. He helped Noor next and then extended a hand to Maria as she made it to the top. She snarled and climbed over without his help. Elio arrived next while Miro covered their six with the help of the operators above.
The numbers coming through the door started to overwhelm the suppressive fire. A surge of bodies pushed through the steel rain. Miro jumped up the ladder as a delta leaped on his back. The two fell backwards and Miro ended up pinned underneath. The delta landed on Miro’s back, straddling his waist.
Mason looked to where he thought Miro’s forty-five had fallen to the ground.
It wasn’t there. Where the hell was it?
There wasn’t time. He turned back and jumped off the helipad.
His foot caught the delta in the back of the neck. A satisfying crunch and it pitched to the side in a heap. Mason landed wrong and his ankle torqued to the side. Pain jolted up his right leg.
Miro pulled him up. “Shit, Sarge! You’re a regular Sam Houston!”
A couple of deltas reached for them and collapsed as a fountain of blood exploded from their foreheads.
Mason glanced up and saw Captain Whitaker zero on the next closest delta and dispatch it in like manner. Still more came. “Get up the ladder, Corporal!”
“Roger that!” Miro said as he scrambled up the rungs.
Mason followed close behind. He made it up and then jerked to a stop as the situation resolved to clarity. All of the operators stood at the edge of the helipad firing down on the deltas as they darted out onto the roof below. As many as they knocked down, more followed. They would not be held off forever.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that he’d found Miro’s forty-five.
Anton stood ten feet away with his back to Mason. He held the missing forty-five in his hands with the muzzle touching the president’s chest. He whipped the pistol a
cross Gabriel’s face knocking his glasses off. A red gash lined his cheek. Anton yelled something that was lost in the din.
His weapon.
About to be used to assassinate the President of the United States.
No.
Not going to happen.
Not in a million years.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
A delta appeared at the top of the ladder. The soldiers shifted to incorporate the expanded field of fire, but they still hadn’t seen what was happening behind them.
The first delta got a double tap to the forehead and it pitched backward.
Captain Whitaker and his men had their hands full slowing the advance, never mind stopping it.
Mason glanced at Beth and she shook her head. Of course, she knew what he would do next. He didn’t waste time responding. Instead, he hobbled toward Anton hoping like hell the bastard didn’t turn around before he got there. Anton raised the pistol to Gabriel’s head just as Mason dove forward.
BANG.
The pistol fired as Mason steamrolled into Anton’s ribcage. They crashed to the ground and Mason made sure his full weight came down on top of the dirtbag.
Anton landed with a grunt and the pistol clattered away. He clawed at his chest and sucked at air that wouldn’t flow through a spasming diaphragm.
Mason rolled off and recovered the forty-five in one smooth maneuver. He finished the roll and came out with one knee down and a foot planted. The front sight raised to find Anton.
Only the planted foot taking his weight was the one with the busted ankle. He nearly pitched over before dropping that knee to the ground to arrest the fall.
The threat was neutralized, but the damage was done. A single bullet that he could never get back. He looked over his shoulder dreading to verify what it had done. Preparing to accept responsibility for the assassination.
Gabriel stood like a stone, clutching his chest.
Mason stood and limped over. “Are you okay, Mr. President?”
He didn’t respond.
The Last Peak (Book 2): The Darwin Collapse Page 31