Bolan acted quickly. With a speed and skill that had to be witnessed to be believed, he flung the knife point-first into the sentry’s throat, knocking him backward. The man crashed down, and Bolan was on him a moment later, ripping the knife free and finishing the job. Bolan heard raised voices from the direction of the fire and rose into a half crouch. As the men began to call out to their dead companions, Bolan dropped to his belly and slithered through the tangled scrub. The gunmen began to spread out, and several had their weapons raised. Bolan took aim at them first. He stroked the trigger and the AR-15 sprayed the clearing. A man flopped backward, his own weapon going off as his fingers jerked convulsively on the trigger. Bolan made a quick battlefield calculation—three down, seven left. Still enough to be a problem, but a smaller problem than before, Bolan thought.
Bolan was up and moving, sprinting to another position. As he ran, he fired blind. There was little chance of him killing more than one or two of them, but that wasn’t his intention. The rifle clicked and he tossed it aside as he threw himself into the underbrush. The remaining men were firing at random, spraying the trees with as much ammunition and as many curses as they could muster. Bark and torn branches fell atop Bolan, but he didn’t move. One hand slipped to the Desert Eagle, but he didn’t draw it. No sense wasting the ammunition. Not yet.
“Stop,” Kraft roared. “Stop!” The big man had reared up in a way that was reminiscent of the bear and he flung out a hand, knocking one of his men down. “Fools,” he bellowed. “He’s making you waste ammunition. Stop firing!”
“Where is he? Where is he?” Mervin whined. The thin man had his little pistol in his hand and he was looking around wildly. “You said he was dead! Kraft, you said he was dead!”
“I was wrong,” Kraft said, looking around. “It happens.”
If Kraft hadn’t been a racist, murdering psychopath, Bolan might have respected him for that admission alone. He’d met a number of men like Kraft in his long career. They possessed the talent for command but rarely had the self-awareness to know that talent didn’t make them infallible. It was a dangerous combination. Bolan considered shooting him then and there, but he knew that the risk outweighed the potential gain.
“Up. Everyone up,” Kraft said briskly, scanning the dark trees. “Gather your gear. Take only what you can carry. We’re making a run for the boats.” He looked at the trees. “Are you out there, my friend? Can you hear me? I assume so,” he called out. “I assume you are watching us even now. Good. I am happy you are alive, my friend, though you may not believe me. There are three motorized rafts set up on the shore. We are only taking two. You should feel free to use the last. If you live through the next few minutes, that is. Heinrich, Adams, keep his head down. The rest of you, go!”
Two of the remaining gunmen began to fire. Bolan pressed himself against the cold ground as they swept the area. Kraft hauled Mervin to his feet and they charged at the river with the others, firing as they went, weaving a wall of brass and lead to keep their unseen enemy at bay. As he hunkered down, Bolan hoped Blackjack had the good sense to keep her head down.
Soon, Heinrich and Adams slowly backed out of the clearing, firing intermittently as they retreated. Bolan watched them go but didn’t move until he heard the growl of motors. Then he waited a ten count, pushed himself to his feet and stepped toward the still-crackling fire.
“Cooper?” Blackjack called.
“I’m here. Are you all right?” Bolan asked as she clambered into the open. She made a show of checking herself and nodded.
“Unperforated and unimpressed. You barely killed any of them.” Blackjack looked around, frowning.
“I wasn’t particularly trying to,” Bolan countered, a bit taken aback. “As you so helpfully pointed out, we’re outnumbered and outgunned, Ms. Blackjack. Right now, I’m just trying to even the odds.” He looked in the direction Kraft and the others had fled. “We’ll have to hope Kraft wasn’t lying about the raft. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long hike.”
“We could just go back for my plane.”
“Feel free,” Bolan said. “I’m heading upriver.”
“Not without me, you ain’t!” Blackjack shot back quickly.
She glared at him and he gestured to the sputtering fire and the duffel bags their enemies had left behind. “Grab what you can easily carry. Ammunition and fuel take precedence, food is second. I’ll see if there’s really another raft.” He met her still-simmering glare and said, “Look, many hands make quick work. If you want to help, help. If you want to argue, go back to your plane and wait.”
Bolan moved quickly in the direction of the river. Blackjack was capable, but contentious and contrary to a fault. She wasn’t used to being told what to do, and it showed. Bolan wondered whether he’d made a mistake in allowing her to come along.
The Noatak greeted him as he stepped down the slope and out of the trees. The sky was alive with stars, and the river looked like a ribbon of lit glass beneath their gaze. He heard the howl of a gray wolf and for a moment, the weight of his undertaking was lifted from his shoulders. The Executioner sucked in a lungful of clean air, tasting the forest and the river in one breath.
In the distance, cutting the horizon, was a line of mountains—the Schwatka Mountains. They were part of the Brooks Range, stretching from Alaska through to the Yukon. They seemed to bow with an immensity of age that struck a chord in Bolan. He shook his head, his breath pluming about his head like a halo. The cold wrapped around him and he repressed a shiver. He looked at the shore.
An inflatable raft with an attached motor had been left behind. Bolan quickly checked it over for booby traps, badly patched holes or anything that might have made the raft a trap rather than a strange gift. Finding nothing, he sat back on his heels, slightly puzzled. It was rare that he came across a man with a death wish as peculiar as Kraft’s. To willingly provide Bolan with the means of catching up was unique. The Executioner had faced men who wanted to test themselves against him; that desire rarely lasted more than one encounter. In Kraft’s case, it seemed to be growing stronger.
“Yeah, puzzling, ain’t it?” a voice said. “Kraft’s got a lot of bad habits—but being sneaky isn’t one of them.” Rocks shifted beneath a foot. “Luckily, he ain’t in charge.”
The soft hiss of metal and plastic cutting the air alerted Bolan to the man’s intent a half second before the butt of the rifle caught him on the side of the head. Bolan staggered, off-balance and wide open as the length of the rifle caught him in the belly. The Executioner coughed and stumbled to the side. A knee caught him on the chin and then he was sliding through the wet stones, on his hands and knees, the world spinning out of control.
“You really thought you were going to take that damn raft and sail upriver after us, didn’t you?” his attacker said, circling. A rough blow sent Bolan sprawling. A hand jerked his Desert Eagle out of its holster and tossed it aside. His attacker backed away and sat down on the edge of the raft. “You’re either stupid or confident. Maybe a bit of both,” he said.
Bolan, on his hands and knees, shook his head to clear it. His stomach rebelled at the movement and his head ached. He spat blood. “More one than the other,” he said.
“Ha! You know, just because Kraft meant that ‘honorable combat’ bullshit don’t mean it goes for everybody,” the man said, raising his weapon. “The Tick-Tock Man might be a weird little bastard, but he is smart. He said to me, ‘Boyd, Kraft will be upset, but he’ll get over it’ and you know what, damned if he isn’t right.”
Bolan tensed, readying himself to move. The Desert Eagle might as well have been miles away, but one good leap and he could grab it. He might take a bullet, but he would send one back if he could. Boyd smirked and sighted down the barrel. “Bye-bye, buddy,” he said, as his finger tightened on the trigger.
The rifle cracked.
Boyd was knocked over
backward, into the raft. He sprawled out in it, and his leg gave a twitch. His face had an expression of shock stamped on it. Bolan looked up and saw Blackjack work the bolt on her rifle. “He dead?” she called out.
Bolan looked at the entry wound in the man’s chest and said, “He’s dead.”
“Told you I could shoot, Mr. Justice Department.” “See if he’s the one with the keys to my plane. Ain’t none of them other ones you killed got ’em.”
“You shot him, you search him,” Bolan said.
“That your way of saying thank you?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Blackjack said primly.
Chapter 17
Two days later
Mervin huddled behind a rock and stewed silently in his own growing anger. They were running low on fuel and food. There was plenty of the latter in the wild, but they had no time to stop and little inclination, given their pursuer.
He had come out of nowhere, again and again, striking fast and hard and refusing to die despite their best efforts. The worst of it, to Mervin’s thinking, was that they still had no idea who he was. He was a blank, a wild card dealt into the game by an unknown player. That lack of identification made him all the more terrifying to Mervin. Who was he? Why had he chosen to interfere?
There were possibilities, of course—suppositions, backed up by the smallest shreds of evidence. The man had military-issue hardware, but his uniform bore no identifying markers. The accent was American, but again, that was no guarantee of anything. Mervin himself was American, working for a German-based organization.
Was he working for a rival organization? The Society of Thylea had many enemies—their activities had brought annoyance to a variety of criminal operations, and there were, of course, the requisite rival occult groups....
Mervin contemplated the world of shadows and fog of which he had long been a part. Secret societies had always been the province of the wealthy and bored, and that had not changed. The Society of Thylea was made up of rich old men, as were the upper echelons of their rival organizations. Race, gender and age were variable factors, but wealth and boredom were always present. Stupidity, as well—money might be the grease for global gears, but it was not power in and of itself. Neither was a cobbled-together ideology, no matter how attractive to the mentally deficient.
But money could buy men. It had bought Mervin, and perhaps it had bought the man who seemed determined to kill them. Was that it, then—money, rather than nationalism or patriotism? Was that the lever?
“Stop mumbling so loud,” Kraft murmured. Mervin glared at him. They were both squatting behind a jagged outcropping close to the river. The stone seemed to radiate cold and Mervin’s thin frame was racked with shivers. Behind them, the others were spread out, their camouflage gear helping them to blend in with their surroundings. They had pulled the rafts ashore not far downriver and covered them with camouflage netting. It had been their intent to make camp. Instead, they were crouching in hiding.
While planning the operation, Mervin had made a thorough analysis of various points along the Noatak River, and had chosen several adequate campsites, should such be required. With the attack, and Kraft’s idiotic offer of a raft, they’d been forced to bypass the sites chosen by Mervin, sacrificing the plan in favor of speed. Now they were low on fuel and supplies, and the place they had chosen to put ashore was seemingly already occupied.
“Who are they?” Mervin asked, reaching for the binoculars that Kraft was peering through. Kraft swatted his groping hand and said, “Campers, by the look of them.”
“What are they doing?”
“Offhand, I’d say they’re camping, Mervin. That’s what campers do.”
“There shouldn’t be any campers out here,” Mervin snapped, hunkering down behind the outcropping. He fumbled for a cigarette and Kraft clamped a hand over his.
“Maybe not, yet there they are, nonetheless, between us and our objective. We must adapt and persevere as our ancestors did in the time of upheaval, when their empire crumbled and they were forced to share their world with beasts.” Kraft took his eyes away from the binoculars and looked at him. “Adapt, Mervin.”
Mervin jerked his hand away. He stuffed one of his remaining cigarettes in his mouth and grunted. “Boyd’s dead,” he said.
“Yes. Otherwise, he would have joined us by now.” Kraft sniffed. “I could have told you that little scheme wasn’t going to work. Perhaps if I had been the one to stay behind, but Boyd was obviously no match for our pursuer.”
“You could have mentioned that,” Mervin snapped.
“I assumed you would reach that conclusion yourself,” Kraft said mildly. His tone grew hard as he added, “I also assumed that once we were in the field you would not countermand my orders. Now we are down a man we could ill afford to lose because you disregarded my command.”
Mervin met his cold gaze truculently. “We have enough.”
“Barely, and we haven’t even reached HYPERBOREA yet.” Kraft sighed. “And we left most of the supplies back at our last camp.” He smiled crookedly. “Our uninvited guest really did a number on us.”
Mervin lit his cigarette. “They have food.”
Kraft looked at him. The simple statement of fact had a sinister undercurrent.
“You said we were running low on supplies. They have supplies. Ergo, we take theirs.” Mervin blinked and then it was his turn to smile. “Even better, we take them.”
“Hostages,” Kraft said and his disgust was evident.
“We have taken hostages before, when it suited our purposes. They are necessary. They will give us an advantage. Take them,” he said.
Kraft stared at him. Mervin blinked slowly, owlishly. “Take them,” he said again. “As you pointed out, we are running low on warm bodies. There are some bodies over there. Take them in the name of Thylea.”
For a moment, Mervin thought the other man might refuse. But pragmatism, as ever, prevailed. Kraft slunk back toward the others. Mervin watched him go and sucked speculatively on his cigarette. Kraft was becoming hard to live with. Something was affecting his good sense. Mervin wondered if he would have to dispatch the big man sooner than anticipated. A moment later he discarded the thought. He had no friends here, save Kraft. Too, their opponent remained at large, hunting them. He was a devil, a fury, hounding them for their crimes. No, killing Kraft now would only put him at a disadvantage.
Kraft and the others crept past him like sinister shadows, moving with a speed and stealth that unnerved Mervin. His hand found his pistol, and then his cigarettes. He wondered if the hikers would have any. He hoped so. This endeavor had been stressful, and he was running low. At the rate things were going, he’d be getting the cravings before they got back to civilization.
An automatic rifle snarled and someone screamed. Mervin huddled against the rock, glaring at the river over the cherry-red tip of his cigarette. He hated the river. He was cold and wet all the time. But it had to be this way. Whoever had designed the installation had done a good job. It was unlikely to be discovered by accident and would be hard to locate even for dedicated searchers. Back when the base had been occupied, the surrounding area had been wilderness. There had likely been roving patrols sweeping the river and the nearby trails for intruders. Now there were just hikers.
Mervin smiled as he heard Kraft shout. He poked his head up over the edge of the rock and saw that they had the camp well in hand. Kraft could be quite efficient when he put his mind to it. Mervin stood and strolled into the camp, hands in the pockets of his coat. “How many?” he asked.
“Four of them,” Kraft said. He gestured at the three men and one woman who now sat huddled about their breakfast fire, faces tense and wary. One of them, a young black man, had a darkening bruise on his face—a preemptive warning. Mervin glanced from the young man to Kraft,
who shrugged. “He resisted.”
“I have no doubt,” Mervin said. He looked at the others—there were five of them, besides him and Kraft. Heinrich, Adams, Picher, Goetz and Burke; Adams was English, Burke and Picher were American and Heinrich and Goetz were German. A multinational assortment of murderers, Mervin thought, and bent down to scoop a strip of bacon out of a pan. He held his cigarette as he chewed methodically. “They are really campers, then?”
“I have no doubt,” Kraft said, throwing his earlier words at him.
“Good. I will explain the situation to them.” Mervin sank to his haunches and looked at their captives, his mind processing facts—three white, one black; three men and one woman; mid-twenties to early thirties. Their gear was new and high-end. Young professionals on a retreat, he surmised. Pleased with himself, he puffed on his cigarette and said, “Gentlemen and lady, you will have noticed the men with guns. They will kill you if you attempt to run. They will kill you if you attempt to resist. If I tell them to, they will kill you. Draw your own conclusions as to the limits of your freedom. You are prisoners of the Society of Thylea, and as such you may take heart that your captivity will be short and painless.” He stepped closer and sniffed. “One of you smokes. You will give me your cigarettes.”
The woman cleared her throat nervously. “I—I don’t have any. I’m trying to—to quit. All I have is the patch.”
Before anyone could react, Mervin grabbed her by the hair and dragged her away from the others. Holding her by her scalp, he snarled, “You are lying. I can smell the tar on you. Give them to me, or I will hurt you.”
“Leave her alone,” the black man growled, making to rise to his feet. Kraft struck him quickly and forcefully, chopping him expertly on the back of the neck. The young man flopped down with a groan. The other two, who had been in the midst of rising, as well, froze.
“They will kill you if you attempt to resist,” Mervin reiterated. He looked back at the woman and tightened his grip. “Cigarettes—where.”
Arctic Kill Page 11