by Matt Rogers
There was one left alive.
The day’s events would leave a sizeable hole in his operation. Perhaps it would be compromised forever. Mabaya didn’t know how many more Americans would come, and what this one had achieved was already devastating. He did not know where he would go from here.
Anger swelled within him. He rose off the rickety chair he had been perched on and lashed out, kicking it across the room.
Thankfully, there were two hostages in the back room he could happily take out his anger on.
He turned and walked down the hallway to their cell.
CHAPTER 22
The bullet hit King like every other battlefield wound he’d sustained did.
So fast he didn’t see it coming.
It was a strange feeling. One moment he had his aim locked on, ready to kill the final Phantom on the river. The next he felt a searing pain near his shoulder and before he knew it the SCAR had dropped from his hands. He lost his footing and fell into the undergrowth. It probably saved his life. As he collapsed, a cluster of AK-105 rounds flew over his head. They would have killed him instantly had he still been standing upright.
In the heat of battle, King’s first instinct was always to act. No matter how dire the situation. Forward momentum was critical to survival. So despite the wound he urged himself to get to his feet, before even calculating the severity of the injury.
When his body didn’t respond, he knew it was bad.
The shock of getting hit shut down his system. The pain had yet to come. But it would. Even though it wasn’t instantaneous, it would surface shortly. After the shell-shock wore off.
The SCAR had fallen into a cluster of plants, just out of reach. King made a move for it, urging his muscles to act, but before he could get hold of it the man who had shot him stepped over a log and planted a boot into his chest. Pinning him into place.
King took a look at the man who would probably end his life. He’d shaved his hair on the sides and let the top grow long and straggly. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in months. He had beady eyes, a weather-beaten face lined with contours and a thick scar running down his left cheek. The expression on his face was one of fury. He aimed the barrel of his weapon right between King’s eyes. King knew any wrong move on his part would be met with a bullet in the brain.
‘I call boss,’ he said in stunted English. ‘Then I kill you.’
‘Sounds good,’ King said.
The man put more pressure on King’s chest, causing him to cough violently. ‘Think you’re funny, huh, American?’
King didn’t reply. He could already feel blood begin to seep from the wound in his shoulder. It flowed down his arm, hot and wet.
The man withdrew a thick satellite phone from his back pocket and thumbed a few buttons. King felt a slight stab of hope. If he could make it out of this situation somehow, someway, then he would be able to contact reinforcements.
The man began to converse with someone on the other end of the line, speaking fluent Spanish. He spoke too fast for King to decipher each word but he managed to translate a few in his head.
Specifically, ‘Kill him now, Armando,’ from the other end.
The man named Armando smiled as he hung up. There would be adrenalin flowing through him as he prepared to kill. King knew exactly what that felt like.
He also knew it made you careless.
Armando took the pressure off King’s chest as he hung up, his mind elsewhere. It gave just enough room for King to shift his weight and slide his good hand behind his back. Reaching for the back of his belt. Fingers searching desperately for the object he’d placed there not ten minutes earlier. The object that had been pinned under his bulk the entire time.
With a flood of relief, he found it.
The spare Glock 19.
King ripped it free and swung his arm out, barrel pointed at Armando’s forehead. The mercenary had made a fatal mistake. He’d let his aim wander. He’d thought King was defenceless. The AK-105 now wavered in his hand, aimed just a few inches past King’s head.
A careless and stupid mistake. One that would cost him dearly.
King shot him in the face without a shadow of remorse.
Armando fell back, relieving King of his weight. He crashed against the log he’d stepped over and came to rest in a sitting position. Stone dead. King saw blood pool from his forehead, thick and viscous. The same colour as the liquid currently leaking from his shoulder.
He rolled over and clambered to his knees. Renewed with a newfound determination. The mission was still salvageable. There was still hope, no matter how slim. The agony in his shoulder made his nerve endings scream, threatened to break him. He wouldn’t let it.
The bullet in his shoulder had ripped through the khaki material of his shirt, leaving a jagged gash. He dug his fingers into the gap and tore off the sleeve, revealing a muscular arm devoid of fat. His shoulder was already covered in blood. King tied the strip of material tight around his shoulder, looping it under his armpit and pulling it just tight enough to avoid cutting off circulation. It was a temporary fix to a serious problem, but it would do for now. The crude bandaging would ensure he didn’t bleed out from his wounds in the near future. He just needed long enough to finish his job. Besides, backup would be here soon.
He reached for the satellite phone Armando had dropped into the undergrowth. Just as he wrapped his fingers around the device, it crackled to life.
‘Armando, wait…’ the voice said in Spanish. ‘I want the American alive. Bring him here.’
King froze. Armando wouldn’t be replying anytime soon. King couldn’t speak Spanish well enough to pass off as the mercenary. He would simply have to ignore the request and wait to see what happened.
Nothing further came from the phone. King rose to his feet, tentative. He winced as the bullet in his shoulder sent stabs of fire through his upper chest. It would be a long recovery before he was back to full health. And he was still far from done.
‘Armando,’ the voice said again. This time urgent. Insistent. Demanding a response.
King said nothing. A button on the side of the phone would enable him to reply, but he did not use it. He couldn’t.
Now the voice switched to English. A bad sign. ‘If there is no reply in one minute, I will kill the hostages. You hear that, American? One minute. Then they are dead.’
Panic washed over King. He swore and tucked the satellite phone into one pocket of his khakis. There was no time to use it. There was no time to do anything now except run. He scooped up the SCAR, ignoring the pain from his wrist and shoulder. It did not concern him anymore. Two innocent people would die if he didn’t make it to the compound as fast as humanly possible.
Every step sent waves of pain and nausea across his shoulder, his chest, his arm, his wrist. He forced all of them aside. He pictured Burns and Norton, curled up somewhere inside the facility, fearing for their lives. It was all he needed. He burst out onto the riverbank and sprinted like a madman in the direction of the compound.
Hoping he wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER 23
By the time he made it to the area of rainforest where he’d last seen the compound, no more than two or three minutes had elapsed. His breath rasped and his chest burned and his legs were weak but he barely even noticed. His right arm ached from wielding the bulk of the SCAR, but he had no other option than to use it one-handed. His left arm was all but useless.
Grunting in agony, he dropped to the forest floor a safe distance away from the facility. Then came the crawl. It mirrored his last approach not an hour earlier, but this time he bore the full effects of combat. Each movement felt twice as difficult. His energy ran low. But people needed him, as they always did, so he would persevere. He knew nothing else.
The moment he laid eyes on the clearing in front of the facility he knew instantly that his efforts had been futile. The two hostages stood side-by-side, facing out into the jungle. Both quaking. Both pale. Behind them, Mabaya had
a bulky pistol in each hand. His arms were spread wide, in a V-shape. He pointed a barrel at each of the Americans’ heads.
Burns and Norton.
It was the first time King had seen either of them.
Both looked nothing like the neat, orderly passport photos he had been shown in the hangar the night before. Burns’ secretarial uniform was torn to shreds, a result of the tough journey through the rainforest or perhaps something worse. Her hair hung wild and frizzy on either side, the ponytail gone. Nevertheless she stood tall, shoulders straight. Defiant even in such a terrible position. King admired her nerve.
Norton had broken mentally. Even from a distance away, that much was apparent. He trembled uncontrollably, clothes also torn, hair matted to his forehead, blood caked on his cheeks. His youth meant inexperience, and inexperience meant he had been wholly unprepared for the brutality of a Peruvian drug gang. King wondered the consequences for his mental health even if he made it out of the jungle alive.
Right then and there, King vowed he would do everything in his power to make sure the two of them lived. Although with each passing second, that seemed to be a less likely scenario.
‘American!’ Mabaya roared. ‘I see you moving out there! Stand up right now. No gun. If you don’t, I’ll kill them both. And then we’ll kill you anyway.’
King knew the chances of a successful extraction had all but disappeared. His situation was beyond dire. There were few options left. In his haste, he had failed to call for backup. No-one was coming for him. His injuries were significant, his resources were exhausted and he had nothing to do but surrender. If he gave it any more thought, innocents would die. They would probably die anyway, but he couldn’t stand to sit here and watch them. He would either join them in death, or they would somehow make it out alive.
He dropped the SCAR rifle and stood up.
Burns let out an audible gasp. King knew what the sound meant. It meant the fraction of hope she had been holding onto was now gone, taken away by the surrender of the man she believed would rescue her. It was tough to watch the light drain from her eyes. King watched her accept her own death. It shook him to his core.
Norton was beyond caring. It seemed he had accepted his own death hours ago, perhaps even the day before when he had been taken from the embassy. He didn’t move a muscle as King rose out of the ferns into view. Just stared vacantly into the distance. Terrified. Shaking.
‘Ah!’ Mabaya roared as King appeared. ‘There we are! The man who killed half my fucking men!’
‘That’s me,’ King said. He tried to keep a brave face but it was tough. Especially when, for the first time in his life, he was certain he would die. Usually he had a way out. A backup plan, even in the most dire situations.
Not this time.
If Mabaya wanted, he could kill all three of them right there and then without a second thought. But he didn’t. Either pride, or curiosity, or something else got the better of him. He wanted to see King up close. The American who’d decimated his forces single-handedly.
‘Come here,’ he said, his voice full of hate. ‘Now!’
King took a step toward the clearing.
‘Hands in the fucking air! And take that gun out of your belt.’
King couldn’t comprehend how Mabaya had even seen the Glock resting in its holster against his rear. Nevertheless, his final sliver of hope faded away. He reached back, withdrew the gun and threw it into the undergrowth. There was no use trying to fire a lucky shot at Mabaya. Even if he hit him, both pistols would go off and Burns and Norton would die.
King continued walking toward the clearing, making sure to take his time. His wounds hurt like all hell, especially the superglued bullet hole in his wrist. The shoddy patch-up job would have severe consequences if he didn’t get medical treatment in the next couple of days. Heading for Mabaya, he wasn’t sure he would be alive to see the next morning.
He stepped out onto the grassy clearing floor. Mabaya didn’t falter. He kept his guns trained firmly on the two hostages. Up close, King recognised the make of the weapons. They were both FN Browning High Power Mk. III’s. Popular with law enforcement. Probably purchased on the black market. It didn’t matter what make they were, though. They were guns. They would send a bullet tumbling through both hostages’ skulls, killing them instantly.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Mabaya said.
‘Just trying to get my friends back,’ King said. ‘Simple as that.’
‘Who sent you?’
‘Nobody.’
‘I know someone sent you. From America.’
‘You’re right. Someone did. But you’ll have never heard of them. They’re classified.’
‘You killed all my men.’
‘I did. Thirteen of them.’
Mabaya hesitated. ‘I sent out fourteen.’
‘One’s still alive, out on one of the boats. Recovering from a concussion.’
‘How did you do this?’
‘A lot of training.’
‘They were my friends.’
King gestured to Burns and Norton. ‘These are mine. The American you killed was my friend.’
His expression hardened. ‘Good. American pigs. You will all die. Motherfuckers. You stay the fuck out of our business.’
‘You shot up our embassy. We didn’t provoke you.’
‘Police were taking our location to you. You would have killed us all.’
‘No, we wouldn’t have.’
Mabaya gnashed his teeth together, his face all rage and fury. King knew there was no reasoning with him. He hated Americans with a passion. Nothing would change that.
‘Now!’ he barked.
King didn’t even hear the movement behind him until it was too late. He heard the rustle of leaves from the forest floor and then a slight sensation of displaced air behind his neck, like something swinging through the air. A fist crashed into the top of his spine. A blow wound up from a sizeable distance away. Full of power, strength, primal anger. His legs buckled from the force of the punch and he dropped to his knees. He careered forward onto the clearing floor. Dazed. Disoriented.
He just managed to turn his head in time to see the second punch coming. Too fast to dodge. Too powerful to absorb. The Phantom’s knuckles crashed against his jaw with perfect placement. He felt a sharp explosion of nerve endings across the side of his face. Then his vision went black. His senses faded.
Darkness.
CHAPTER 24
Everyone feels the same thing when they resurface from unconsciousness.
A sense of utter confusion.
It felt like no time had passed at all. King’s head swam as he came to, and he found himself wondering where the hell he was and how on earth he had managed to get there. He was lying on the floor of a small concrete room. Whitewashed walls. He blinked hard. Two people watched him. A youthful guy and an older woman. He studied their faces. They wore expressions of shock and fear and apprehension. Not your standard emotions.
Where was he?
Bits and pieces began to come back. Some kind of a foreign environment. A rainforest. That’s where he’d been. He hadn’t felt safe either. Tension and unease knotted his gut.
‘Are you okay?’ the woman said.
King raised a hand to his temple and rubbed it. His eyes throbbed from the artificial light overhead.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve been concussed before.’
The murky haze grew clearer. He remembered where he was, and why he was there.
‘You’re Burns?’ he said.
The woman nodded. ‘And you’re the man everyone’s been looking for.’
King turned to the boy. ‘Norton?’
He nodded too. A timid gesture, full of fear.
‘We’re fucked, aren’t we?’ Norton said. ‘You were our last hope. We’re going to die in here. Oh my god…’
The room was small and square and dirty. King turned and noticed they were caged in. Thick steel mesh stretched from wall to
wall in the centre of the room, blocking their path to the door on the other side. The space felt cramped, entirely devoid of windows or any external light.
‘I’ve been in worse situations,’ King said, still looking around, too busy to make eye contact. ‘We may have a shot.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Burns said. ‘One of them is going to walk through that door any second and either torture us or kill us.’
‘He’ll probably just shoot us, if that’s any consolation,’ King said. ‘I think he knows if he comes in here and tries anything I’ll put up a fight. He saw what I did to his men.’
‘What did you do to his men?’ Burns said. ‘For the last few hours this place has been pandemonium. Shouting, screaming. I heard so many gunshots in the distance…’
‘I killed about half his forces, but evidently that wasn’t enough.’
He saw Norton’s eyes widen. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead.
‘You okay, kid?’
The boy shook his head. ‘I … I don’t know if you two are used to this kind of situation, or whatever, but I can’t handle this. I’m going to fucking die in here. Do you get it? We’re going to die…’
He began to repeat the same train of thought over and over again. Muttering, most of it inaudible, all of it concerning death.
King reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘Look, this is tough. You’ve never been scared for your life before. And by that I mean genuinely terrified. I have. It’s not a good feeling but you can’t let it consume you. Stay strong. I’m gonna try and get us out of here but you can’t have a fucking mental breakdown while I’m trying.’