Man of War

by Sean Parnell

  They were within ten feet when Jean-Luc made his move. He jumped forward like a sprinter coming out of the blocks, twisting his arm back to strike at Steele. “I see him,” the radio crackled.

  Steele yanked on the pistol, but the front sight got snagged on the Frenchman’s belt. Jean-Luc’s right arm hit him in the wrist, a painful bone-on-bone collision that wrenched the Five-seven out of his grip. Steele could make out Burrows’s bodyguard posted up ahead, faithfully guarding his boss’s booth.

  Jean-Luc shouted a warning while trying to dodge the server who seemed to appear out of nowhere. The bodyguard turned to his left, reached into his jacket, and squared up to the threat. Steele’s instincts told him that he was too far behind the eight-ball to get the MP9 into action fast, so he improvised.

  He launched a kick at Jean-Luc’s ankle that would have made an NFL punter proud. His leg muscles pistoned his foot toward its target like a hot rod on a quarter-mile track. The impact snapped the fleeing Frenchman’s puny ankle, causing him to tumble into the server.

  Now.

  The bodyguard froze, trying to make sense of the tangle of legs that had appeared before him. Steele stayed low; he could see the pistol a few feet ahead, but knew he’d never make it. Instead he lowered his shoulder into the unsuspecting server, who was frozen in place by his boss’s bloodcurdling shrieks. Steele hit him hard and sent him tumbling into Burrows’s man. He snatched a beer bottle from the ground, and was swinging it when the bodyguard panicked and fired.

  Orange flame erupted from the barrel, scorching the server’s white jacket. There was a flash of blood; Steele kept moving toward the threat, shutting everything away. He was in the zone, the dark raging place he’d always gone when the killing started. Steele slammed the bottle against the bodyguard’s skull. Glass and beer exploded in a cloud, mixing with the blood that erupted from the impact. What was left in his hand was a jagged shard attached to the neck like some primeval blade.

  It was the only weapon Steele needed. He pushed the falling server into the bodyguard, and saw the man fold like a table when the dead man’s head slammed into his solar plexus. Steele was so close that he smelled the bodyguard’s cologne, a musky scent that made his eyes water. The man shifted, trying to keep his balance while pushing the corpse off him. His pistol was useless, but he cracked off another shot. It buzzed past Steele’s ear like an angry hornet.

  Ears ringing from the gunshot, Steele grabbed the pistol with his left hand and forced the guard’s arm up, uncovering his armpit. He drove the makeshift blade into unprotected flesh, four quick jabs that had more in common with a prison shanking than a government-sanctioned hit. The jagged blade must have hit the lung and a jet of blood sprayed across the side of Steele’s face, carrying the stench of the guard’s breath. The blood smelled of old pennies, but the air of vodka and garlic.

  On the fifth strike the blade hit bone and splintered, leaving a jagged haft in Steele’s hand. He sunk it into the man’s thigh and dove sideways for the FN. It wasn’t a moment too soon.

  Steele saw the wall explode in a puff of masonry dust and drywall and then he heard the shot. He landed on his side, grabbed the pistol, and rolled to the left. The shooter was moving toward him, firing on the move. His second shot hit the ground where Steele had been a moment before, and the bullet whined when it ricocheted up, striking a woman in the pelvis.

  He fired three shots, engaging the shooter from his back. The suppressor sounded like a book being dropped onto a concrete floor. Thwap, thwap, thwap. Steele got up to his knees, turreted the pistol toward the bodyguard bleeding all over the wall, and put him out of his misery.

  Steele switched the Five-seven into his left hand and jerked one of the mini frags from his pocket. The grenade was smaller than a racquetball, and he had straightened the pin beforehand for just this reason. He looped the ring over his left thumb and yanked it. The spring pinged the spoon free, arming the fragmentation grenade, and Steele bolted to the stairs in a crouch.

  One thousand, two thousand, three thousand.

  He saw his reflection in the mirror. Beneath the macabre mask made of glistening blood, his green eyes burned with the fire of impending violence. He could see five men in the center of the room and used the glass to bounce the mini frag into their midst.

  Four thousand . . .

  The frag exploded, and Steele came around the corner low, pistol up and firing.

  The mini grenade had gone off under the table, filling the cube with smoke and the screams of the wounded. Steele worked from left to right, icepicking the full metal jackets through the bodyguard’s soft armor with the kinetic energy of a rocket ship. The first shots were low, on purpose, and he snapped two rounds into one of his targets’ pelvises, letting the muzzle rise carry the barrel up, while he pivoted to the right.

  He gave Ronna a single shot to the eye, double-tapped a bodyguard whose shin had been blown open, and then settled on Burrows.

  “Should have stayed away,” he said with a shrug, and then he blew the man’s brains against the back wall.

  Bullets cracked over the VIP box and Steele dumped the Five-seven and yanked the MP9 out. He climbed up on one of the smoldering couches and ripped a burst into the shooters. He saw Felix rushing down the walkway, a shotgun in his hands. He aimed at his belt and stitched five rounds up to his neck.

  The club was in chaos, the music mixing with the screams of dancers and drunken businessmen. Steele was careful with his shots, avoiding collateral damage like the plague. He only fired when he had a target, and after working through the magazine, he stepped down from the couch and pulled the CS gas out of his jacket. He surveyed the damage, and once he was sure that everyone he had come to kill was dead, he rammed a fresh magazine into the MP9 and calmly walked down the steps.

  He ripped the pin from the canister and tossed it into the club, fixed his jacket, and headed for the emergency exit. Before the tear gas filled the Dragon’s Door, Eric Steele pushed the door open and stepped into the alley.

  A late-model sedan skidded to a halt where the alley opened up to the street. Steele jogged over, saw Demo lean across the seat and pop the door as he approached. Steele hazarded a final look behind him and hopped into the vehicle.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day, mano,” Demo said, nodding to the red and blue lights screaming up the street behind them.

  Chapter 7

  Algiers

  Meg Harden saw the kick coming, but wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. It landed with a snap, causing her thigh to go numb. She raised her gloves, wiping the sweat from her eyes in preparation for the onslaught to follow, but nothing happened.

  “C’mon,” her sparring partner taunted with a cocky little wave.

  Meg’s face got hot and it had nothing to do with the pain.

  Her sparring partner went by James or Jack—she couldn’t remember. The CIA Special Operations guys were all the same. Cocky ex–Special Forces who just wanted to fuck her.

  At five foot five, Meg was a stunner. She had shoulder-length black hair, which she always wore in a ponytail, a perfectly upturned nose, and dimples that usually made her male coworkers forget how to talk.

  Meg didn’t mind the cockiness, or the fact that James kept staring at her tits. What pissed her off was that he was going easy on her.

  She found that extremely disrespectful, and when he sent another halfhearted leg kick her way, Meg made him pay for it.

  She shot in like a snake, left arm down, to block the strike. She hit him in the stomach, as hard as she could. The blow knocked the breath out of him, but she wasn’t finished. Once her left foot was set, Meg scythed her right heel back and into James’s calf. It hit like a hammer and sent him tumbling on his ass.

  Oooomph.

  Meg easily achieved the mount and dropped a few punches on his face before letting him up. James used his thumb to wipe the blood from his nose and raised his gloves. Meg circled to the l
eft, and he closed the distance a few times, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it.

  If I were a man he’d be trying to beat my ass.

  They sparred for another ten minutes, but the playful flirting was over, and now that sex was off the table, James just wanted to get on with his day. Meg knew she was intense, and while she expected to be treated like one of the guys, it always turned out the same way. Once a man lost his self-confidence, his interest in her quickly followed.

  Meg left the gym, her flip-flops smacking against her feet, but slowed before entering the living quarters. Most of the people who lived adjacent to her worked nights and Meg didn’t want to wake them up. She pinned the offending soles to the bottom of her feet by curling her toes and taking smaller steps.

  It made her feel like she was sneaking into her parents’ house, which brought a smile to her face.

  She unlocked the door with the key that hung around her neck and stepped inside. The room was small and obsessively tidy. Along the far wall her bed was tightly made, and the only things on the desk were a laptop and a small lamp. The walls were bare and the same neutral brown as the hotel-size chest of drawers.

  She tossed her towel on the bed and booted up the laptop before heading toward the bathroom. Before she crossed the threshold she felt something nagging at her. Meg stopped, her pretty face framed in the mirror.

  “Just leave it,” she told herself.

  Being a neat freak was a daily struggle. In college her roommates would stage little messes, then run off and hide. It didn’t matter if she was late for class or a date, Meg fell for it every time. And just as soon as she threw up her hands and started to clean up the mess, there would be a chorus of muffled laughter behind her.

  The Army had just made it worse.

  Meg had spent ten years in the Army and loved every minute of it. But the second time she was passed over for major, she didn’t need anyone to spell it out for her.

  She was done.

  Just turn on the shower, Meg Harden.

  She turned on the water and held her hand up to test the temperature. Once satisfied, she pulled the curtain closed and tugged her shirt over her head. She tossed it into the plastic hamper, before moving back to the mirror and eyeing the towel again. She absently rubbed her palm over the leg of her workout pants in an attempt to dry her hands.

  Her face wrinkled into an O, revealing a dimple on her right cheek.

  “Owwww.”

  Meg tugged her pants down around her ankles and heeled them back into the room. Taking a step back, she pointed her big toe, bringing her leg into view. The skin around her shapely thigh was red and angry, and a wine-colored bruise had begun to form. She gingerly fingertipped the puffy skin, all thoughts of the towel momentarily forgotten.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Standing in front of the mirror in her bra and panties, Meg was reminded for the hundredth time that being a woman in a male-dominated world was not for the faint of heart. It was lonely and something her mother and sisters still didn’t understand.

  “Don’t you want babies?” they’d asked the last time she went home to Pittsburgh.

  “You obviously haven’t seen the men in the Army,” she’d replied.

  When deployed, it was easy for a girl to forget what it meant to be a woman. In Iraq she had a group of girlfriends who loved the fact that being deployed meant no makeup and an easy hair day, but that wasn’t Meg. Sure, she skimped on makeup sometimes and liked to keep her hair up in a ponytail, but that was before she met Colt Weller.

  The thought of the SOG officer made Meg aware that she hadn’t shaved her legs in three days. She took the razor from the shower caddy and set about remedying the problem before washing her hair and turning off the water. She stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and dressed quickly in a gray bra, a black tank top, and a worn-in pair of Mountain Hardware pants. She typed her password into the laptop, which unlocked with a ding. Meg pressed her thumb to the biometric reader then toweled her damp hair while waiting for the server to connect to the encrypted CIA interweb.

  An hourglass spun lazily on the screen, telling her that the computer was uplinking with one of the Agency’s satellites. Before it could connect there was a sharp rap at the door.

  “Yeah?” Meg asked.

  “It’s me.”

  Shit.

  Meg had turned her head toward the door at the sound of the knock, but froze when she recognized Colt’s voice. She saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror and it made her want to crawl under the bed and hide. Her cheeks were flushed below wet, formless hair. She saw the makeup bag sitting alone on the counter.

  “H-hold on. I just got out of the shower,” she replied, tiptoeing quickly toward the makeup bag.

  “I need you to hurry it up. We have a mission.”

  Meg stopped in midstride, instantly forgetting about the makeup. She turned to the door and unlocked it with a twist of the knob.

  “I um, I . . . Hey,” she said, opening the door.

  “I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?” Colt asked, making a show of looking around the room.

  “What . . . no?” Meg quickly got hold of herself and tried to play it off. “Don’t tell me, someone crashed another iPad.”

  “No idea,” Colt replied, stepping in the doorway but not entering her room. “You sure keep it clean in here.”

  “Thanks,” Meg replied, grabbing a pair of socks.

  “You know, I should be upstairs at the briefing, but for some reason when I told James to come and get you he suddenly had something really important to do. You know anything about that?”

  Meg smiled innocently and finished tugging the final sock on. “Why would I know anything about that?” she asked, retrieving a pair of hiking boots from beneath the bed.

  “Some of the guys said he’s been macking on this little brunette who works in operations.”

  “What, are you jealous?”

  Oh my God, why did I say that?

  As the SOG, or Special Operations Group, team leader, Colt was one of the few men who knew what Meg really did for the CIA. He’d been around the block a few times, and with multiple tours in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, he had a disarming manner that Meg found sexy. It didn’t hurt that he was good-looking and believed she was an asset for the Algiers station.

  The only problem was that he treated Meg like she was his little sister.

  “Why would I be jealous?” he asked with a confused look that annoyed the hell out of Meg.

  “It was a joke,” she said, getting to her feet and heading to her wall locker. Can I make a bigger fool of myself?

  She was excited to leave the wire. Since she was the only woman at the Algiers station, the station chief was loath to let her leave the compound. In fact, the only reason she had combat gear was because she had gone down to supply and scrounged it up herself.

  She opened the locker and was reaching for the Glock 17 sitting on the top shelf when the wall started to vibrate. It was followed a moment later by a faint cruuuump that came from the north. The sound was as familiar as the smell of gun oil coming from the holstered Glock.

  It was a mortar.

  Meg grabbed the pistol, clipped it to her belt, and turned just as three more detonations erupted. Colt didn’t flinch. He stood in the doorway looking up at the ceiling with a furrowed brow, index finger held to his lips.

  “You hear that?”

  “Kind of hard to miss four mortar rounds.”

  “No, listen.”

  Meg didn’t hear anything at first, but then she made out a faint crackling in the distance. It was tentative, like the fireworks her brother used to shoot off before the big Fourth of July show, and just as distinctive.

  “Those are AK-47s, and lots of them,” she said.

  “We should go,” Colt replied. “Right now.”

  Chapter 8

  Tyre, Lebanon

  Steele and Demo split up outside Beirut and Eric took the coastal highway towa
rd Tyre. He stopped twice to switch cars. Twenty miles north of his destination, he donned a pair of night vision goggles. He cut the lights and bounced the SUV off the road. Under NODs the desert looked green and flat, the amplified light killing his depth perception. Far to the east he could see the hint of dawn.

  Soon the sky would turn pink and blue as the sun slipped over the Mediterranean, and if he didn’t get to the landing zone soon he was going to have to remain overnight.

  The GPS strapped to his wrist beeped and Steele hit the brakes and cut the engine. He grabbed his gear and stepped out of the Isuzu Rodeo before turning the radio on.

  “Eagle, this is Stalker 7, how do you read?”

  There was a moment of silence then a voice that sounded like it was coming from a tin can came up on the net.

  “Stalker 7, this is Eagle, I read you five by five.”

  “Good copy, Eagle, I am activating my beacon now.”

  Steele flipped a switch on the radio, which activated the search and rescue that would give his location to the pilot.

  “I’ve got you, Stalker 7, we are inbound at 98 degrees ETA zero five mikes, how copy?”

  “Stalker copies.”

  Steele carried the radio with him to the back of the SUV. He popped the hatch and leaned in to arm the charge he had taped to the five-gallon can of gas. The wireless detonator beeped in his hand, telling him that it had a signal. Steele closed the lift gate and headed back to his pack, the growl in his stomach reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in almost seven hours.

  He was eating an apple when he caught sight of the MH-60 Pave Hawk coming low and fast over the water. He took a final bite of the apple before throwing it away. The special operations bird was almost on top of him and he stole a quick glance.

  The pilot yanked the stick back and the bird rocked onto its tail. The engine screamed and the blades beat at the air, loading the tips with static electricity. Eric saw them turn yellow through his night vision and then ducked his head. A wall of sand, hot air, and dirt hit him in the chest, almost blowing him over, and he waited until the bird touched down before grabbing his pack and jumping to his feet.