Gerhardt was fast and surefooted across the uneven, slippery terrain. Their point man leapt over a fallen beam and ducked beneath a dangling wire. Lightning flashed, momentarily causing the night vision goggles to blink out to protect their sensitive light-gathering electronics from being overwhelmed. When the view returned, Gerhardt was gone.
It had been so fast that he thought he’d made a mistake, but Gerhardt’s Benelli shotgun was lying in a puddle. There was no sign of the rest of him.
“Halt!” Klaus shouted as he flipped up his goggles. “Lights on!”
Grimm Berlin instantly complied. Scalding light filled the broken forest.
Klaus ran to the side, trying to get a better angle. His man had to be there somewhere, but there was nothing. Then Klaus realized that the puddle was draining through a hole in the floor. There was another level beneath what had been crushed by the collapsing upper stories. Gerhardt had been pulled through the floor. “Franks is below us.”
There was a gasp and a thud. Klaus spun around just in time to be blinded by one of his men’s flashlights, then the light jerked wildly to the side and disappeared as the Hunter was dragged around a corner. Still seeing stars, Klaus rushed after him, but tripped and stumbled as his foot caught a loose board. He crashed into the wall, jabbing his shoulder on an exposed nail. Klaus cursed, pushed himself off the wall, and went to the corner.
His men were following. “Stay back and cover each other!” Klaus snapped. He went around the corner, ready to fire.
Schwarz was flat on his back. There was no sign of his attacker. Klaus knelt next to him and felt for a pulse. The Hunter was still alive, but unconscious.
There was a gunshot. A man screamed in pain. That time it had come from the Hunters sent to the right. Franks was a fucking ghost. “Everyone fall back! Get the hell out of here, now!” Klaus shouted into the radio. “Go. Hurry!”
Klaus let his carbine hang from the sling while he pulled Schwarz up by the straps of his armor. Schwarz was bigger than he was, but there was a certain measure of extra strength a man could find when fear boiled his blood. He got Schwarz into a fireman’s carry and started back the way they’d come.
Most of his men were ahead of him, doing as he’d ordered. Klaus stumbled along beneath Schwarz’s weight, the weapon-mounted light banging back and forth against his chest, casting wild shadows. One of his men had lingered to cover him.
A giant figure materialized in front of him. Before Klaus could react, one massive fist slammed into the side of his face. Lights and pain exploded inside Klaus’ skull. He toppled backwards and Schwarz crashed into the floor. The other Hunter raised his weapon, but Franks was impossibly quick, and the Hunter’s hand disappeared in a red spray as a blade cleaved through his wrist. The gun and the hand that had been holding it went sailing into the darkness before Franks kicked the crippled Hunter through a wall.
Despite being disoriented from the blow, Klaus went for his carbine, only to have a massive boot slam into his chest, ribs snapped, but worse it pinned the rifle down. Klaus immediately reached for his sidearm but stopped when a cold piece of steel was pressed hard against his throat.
Two white eyes appeared in the dark. Franks had blackened his face with ash. This was not a man, it was a terrifying avenging angel, come to separate the wheat from the chaff. Klaus swallowed, and the knife blade was so sharp that the motion drew blood.
“Germans?” Franks asked nonchalantly. He was studying the Grimm Berlin patch on Klaus’ vest.
Klaus slowly, so as not to cut his own throat, nodded. He was not afraid for himself, only for his men. Schwarz was not moving. The Hunter with the severed hand was moaning. He’d need a tourniquet quickly or he would die of blood loss.
Franks switched to German. “You are not with the ones that shot Myers.”
So that was who had been wounded. “Kill me if you want, but I’d ask you to spare my men.”
“Why should I?”
He was having a very hard time breathing. Franks had broken something, and the boot and much of the weight behind it was still crushing his chest. “They’re good men, only doing their duty.”
It was impossible to read Franks’ emotions. The knife did not so much as quiver. “The bounty. How much?”
“Two hundred and fifty million American.”
“Hmm . . . That’s all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“No . . . You’re lucky.” Franks removed the boot and the knife. “I’ve got a soft spot for German mercenaries. Don’t follow me.”
Franks melted back into the shadows and disappeared.
Klaus Lindemann got on the radio. He could only breathe with great difficulty. “This is Klaus. I’m in the ruin. We’ve got multiple wounded and need help now.”
“On the way. We’ve still got men on the perimeter. Should they go after Franks?”
Klaus Lindemann had fought all manner of monster and beast, living or dead, from one end of the world to the other, and even into the realm of nightmares, but after looking into those cold eyes, Klaus understood that if Grimm Berlin continued on this particular hunt, death would be their only reward.
“Let him go.”
* * *
Franks heard the helicopters coming in. He recognized the sound of the rotors as Blackhawks, so it was probably the MCB Strike Team or STFU. He didn’t hear any Apaches. The Strike Team had access to a few attack helicopters, and those had enough range on their various weapon systems to stand off and destroy this whole place from so far away that he’d never hear them coming, so hopefully it wasn’t the Strike Team.
If it was either of those groups, that meant they had probably brought in aerial recon, and it would be something a lot better than the glorified toy airplane he’d shot out of the sky a few minutes before. Franks maneuvered through the old buildings, trying to keep a roof over his head, but he knew that anytime he had a skylight or a gaping hole above him, they’d pick up his body heat. It probably wasn’t an armed drone at least, or they’d already have bombed him.
The noose was tightening. If Strayhorn had not gotten Myers to safety by now, he never would. It was time to go. Franks stopped in the shadows and listened carefully. The Hunters who’d come in from the road had been hurt, but not all of them had given up. A few small teams had moved into the yard, refusing to give up. They were between him and the stolen car he’d used to get here. He’d hurt the Germans enough that he doubted they’d follow, but they were entrenched by the docks, so he didn’t want to try going back that way.
The echo of the rotors changed. One of them was still heading this way, but the other had turned. It was moving inland . . .
If they had quality aerial recon they would have seen Myers escape. His distraction should have been more than sufficient for any normal Hunters. The only person who would care more about neutralizing Myers than capturing Franks would be Stricken. That meant the incoming Blackhawks were STFU, and now one of them was going after Strayhorn’s car. Myers was still in danger.
Franks’ mission parameters had just changed.
There was another engine noise barely audible over the rain, this time from the direction of the ocean. It was a powerful boat engine. The Germans had come from that direction, so it had to be one of their rides. It would also be the fastest way out of here. Franks ran toward the ocean.
Some of the Paranormal Tactical men spotted him and opened fire. They were fifty yards away, and didn’t have a clean shot through the various pieces of cover, but they tried to make up for that with volume. As much as he would have enjoyed sticking around to kill them all, he simply didn’t have the time. Franks spotted a drainage ditch, now mostly filled with runoff. It would take him to the sea. Franks jumped in. He hurried along, partly crawling, partly swimming, and partly being bounced about by water pressure. The ditch fed into a wide concrete pipe, so Franks let himself be carried inside.
The drainage pipe had a downward angle. Mold and slime made the sides so slick that Franks sl
id along quickly. He did not like not being in full control. Franks had never understood what humans found so entertaining about water slides.
Twenty feet later he crashed into a collected mass of garbage, old tree branches, and dead vegetation. There was a metal gate blocking the end of the pipe. Damn. Behind him, the PT Hunters were approaching. He was a sitting duck inside these narrow confines. Franks pushed through the refuse and grabbed the iron bars. The metal had been soft before it had become rusty, but it was still rather thick. As the mud crashed over him, Franks took hold of one bar, braced his boots on the slippery muck of the bottom of the pipe and pulled. It creaked and deformed, but it didn’t break.
Flashlight beams filled the pipe. Franks quickly drew his Glock, aimed down the pipe, and fired at the lights. There was a yelp of surprise, and one of the lights was dropped into the water. One of the other Hunters had more fortitude than that, and began firing down the pipe. Bullets splashed through the muck. Franks felt the burn of an impact, but he ignored it, aimed at the muzzle flash, and pulled the trigger. The Hunter stopped shooting when the 10mm bullet hit his gun and tore it from his grasp.
“Mindy! That son of a bitch shot Mindy!”
Franks did not know who Mindy was. A muzzle appeared as a rifle was hung around the side. Franks shot that Hunter in the arm before he could accomplish anything useful.
It was momentarily quiet as the Hunters pulled back. Franks holstered the Glock and went back to bending iron bars before the Hunters realized they could simply roll grenades down the pipe. Franks roared and pulled with all of his might. The iron tore free, creating a gap. Franks put his shoulder against it and tried to push through. It was still too tight. He put a hand on the other bar and pushed, bending them further apart.
The Hunters were shouting behind him. There was a plop in the water, followed a few seconds later by an explosion. Tiny bits of hot metal ripped through his back. Water did not compress and the overpressure was extreme inside the narrow concrete confines. Franks could no longer hear anything but a high-pitched ringing noise. Blood was pouring out of his ears and nose. If he’d been human, the pressure alone would have killed him, or at least knocked him out to sink beneath the mud and drown.
They’d dropped that last grenade, hoping for gravity to do their work, but it had not rolled very far down the pipe before going off. They would not make the same mistake again. The next one would be tossed. Franks kept pushing. Blood welled through the palms of his hands. Metal groaned in protest. The gap was wider. Franks shoved himself against it, but the pouches of his vest caught. He backed up and unbuckled it, just in time to catch the splash of the next grenade out of the corner of his eye.
Franks shrugged out of the vest and squeezed through the gap. He still left a lot of skin on the rusty metal, but he was through. The pipe on this side was slick, open, and angled more steeply, so Franks let himself drop. The grenade went off above him, but Franks was already careening down through the darkness.
The pipe ended, and he was falling. It was a twenty-foot drop but into water. As soon as he hit, Franks angled himself down and started swimming. Salt water. Current. He’d reached the ocean. He didn’t know how deep it was here, but he headed for the silt at the bottom. Franks cursed himself for not knowing how well STFU’s aerial reconnaissance could see through water. He should have learned that . . . They were probably still tracking him, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that right now. So instead Franks concentrated on catching a ride out.
He swam along the bottom, pointing himself in the direction he’d last heard the Germans’ boat. Franks could hold his breath for a very long time. His record was fifty minutes, roughly double that of the human world record holder, but that was only by cheating, holding perfectly still, and selectively shutting down the function of some of his internal organs. Right now Franks was bleeding from multiple wounds and exerting himself, so he’d be lucky to go a quarter of that before having to come up for air.
Franks stopped momentarily, trying to get his bearings in the muddy darkness. He took the opportunity to draw a folding knife, slice through his laces, and kick off his boots. They made swimming too slow. He could not see that much color in the dark, but the water around him would be turning red. It would be ironic if a shark ate him . . . But sharks instinctively knew better than to mess with a superior predator.
There. He felt the boat long before he saw it. Franks swam in that direction. A black shape was bouncing across the surface to the east. As he got closer he could tell it was a rigid hull inflatable boat. The hull was a deep V in the water. It was coasting along now, engine idling, but it would be fast, and Franks liked fast. They would be looking toward shore, so Franks swam beneath it, coming up on the far side.
Breaking the surface, Franks listened, but realized that he still couldn’t hear very well. The explosion had rattled his head. He pulled himself up over the side. There were two Hunters on board. One of them felt the lurch as Franks’ weight rocked the boat, but Franks covered the distance and clubbed him over the head. The other was at a pintle-mounted machine gun at the bow. He turned just in time to catch a fist to the stomach. Franks hurled them both over the side.
Four hundred yards away a Blackhawk was hovering over the burning shipyard, playing its spotlight back and forth. The drone must have lost track of him at some point. STFU was joining the search. The chopper was still moving at least twenty miles an hour, but figures moved to the door and slid down the rope so quickly and with such effortless grace that they could only be Nemesis assets.
The smart thing to do would have been to fire this thing up and run for it. It would take them a minute to realize he’d stolen the boat, and by then he could be back on land and have already stolen a new vehicle and gone after Myers.
But those were Nemesis . . . And that just pissed him off.
The machine gun the Germans had brought was a Rheinmetall MG3. It was basically a modernized version of the same exact machine gun the Nazis had used during World War II, so Franks had been shot at by a few of these things. A long belt of 7.62 hung out the side. Franks looked at the machine gun, then at the helicopter, and back at the machine gun . . . The idea made him happy.
With a cyclic rate of over a thousand rounds a minute, Myers wouldn’t have to wait that long.
Franks got behind the machine gun. He knew from experience how tough a Blackhawk was, and even if he forced it to crash, at that altitude the passengers could survive, especially soldiers based on his own nearly invulnerable physiology, but no system was perfect, and bullets were persistent.
The machine gun roared.
His eardrums were damaged, but he heard that. A line of orange tracers filled the air. Franks manhandled the heavy weapon, guiding it with an artist’s touch. Franks could write his name in cursive with one of these. He started with the vulnerable tail rotor and didn’t stop until he was positive he’d seen pieces flying off of it. Then he tracked bullets along the chopper’s body, through the open door, and all through the compartment. The angle changed as the pilot tried to maneuver away, so Franks switched to pounding the engines. The chopper spun wildly and a Nemesis soldier was hurled out the open door.
The Germans had attached a few hundred-round belts together and the MG3 just kept on dragging armor-piercing death out of the ammo can and spitting it out the muzzle at twenty-seven hundred feet per second. The rain hit the machine gun and hissed into steam. Smoke was coming out of the Blackhawk’s engines, but Franks just kept on hammering them just to be a dick. It rotated as something broke, giving him another angle on the open door. Bullets ripped through the crew compartment again, piercing Nemesis soldiers. Then he must have gotten lucky and tagged the pilot, because the chopper suddenly lurched sideways. The rotor blades caught the edge of a cargo crane and exploded. The Blackhawk dropped like a stone, disappearing behind one of the warehouses.
That had been . . . satisfying.
Now back to work. Strayhorn would be taking Myers to th
e nearest hospital, and Franks knew exactly where that was. The Germans’ boat had a radio. He had to protect Myers until legitimate authorities were involved. He owed him that much.
There was some splashing and thrashing off the side. He had not been lying to the German Hunter earlier. It had been Hessian mercenaries who had taught him to act human, so Franks tossed a life preserver overboard for the two Hunters, slightly lessening their chances of drowning. That was his good deed for the year.
He pulled the flask of Elixir from his pocket. This would be unpleasant, but this was going to be a multiple-dose kind of night. Then Franks went to the controls and pushed on the throttle. The powerful engine roared and the Zodiac surged across the waves.
* * *
The helicopter was on its side. They’d fallen on top of a structure. Kurst could tell because of the concrete and rebar that had smashed through the sheet metal next to him. It had struck him in the arm hard enough to break the armored bone, causing a compound fracture. He marveled at the jagged white splinter sticking through his forearm before using his fingers to shove the bone back into place.
Smoke was filling the interior. The engines had caught fire. Kurst got up and assessed the situation. The human pilots were dead. A human handler was unconscious. Stricken was . . . gone? The albino’s laptop was wedged between two seats, broken. Kurst had lost track of Stricken during the crash. Perhaps he had been hurled out the door. That would be far more convenient than removing him in a manner which could potentially raise questions that would cause his underlings to throw the kill switch. Only half of his brethren had been in this helicopter, and several of them had already fast-roped out before they’d been hit. The other Nemesis soldiers were extracting themselves. Seven had received a laceration across the throat, severing her windpipe, so she was having some trouble. That wound could be duct taped closed enough to keep her breath from escaping for the duration of the mission. Five had been the unlucky one. When the rotor had come apart, a large piece of the shrapnel had flown through the compartment, slicing off one of his arms and the top half of his skull. There were brains everywhere. Like Franks, they had reserve brain tissue, but the impact had broken Five’s spine in multiple places so the backup was not working.
Monster Hunter Nemesis Page 24