Reckoning

by James Byron Huggins

  Sarah Halder had said nothing more, but she hadn't moved, either. And the old man was down. Maybe dying.

  A car engine roared in the garage.

  The darkness above Kertzman moved, shifted.

  Danger!

  Something moving ...

  Grenades!

  *

  Gage raced into the garage through the connecting hallway, the MP5 leading. He put on the night visor as he hit the darkened end of the corridor and thumbed the selector to fully auto.

  He went into the garage low, scanning left to right.

  Nothing.

  Gunfire exploded in the cabin.

  He whirled back, teeth exposed in a snarl, and decided instantly that he would have to get outside, quick, if he were to change the situation. He turned towards the LTD, his mind scanning through tactics, blitzing through dozens of defensive measures in seconds before locking in.

  ... Assume all exits to be closed ... Create confusion, chaos ... Get out fast to break the perimeter ... Use the vehicle for cover ... Get outside them and force them to defend ... Speed, speed, speed ...

  Gage snatched open the door of the LTD and leaped inside, automatically reaching out to find a grenade in the duffle bag. His brain was combining tactics, turning a defensive position into an offensive attack.

  Seconds flying.

  ... Chavez doesn't have a night scope, so he can't acquire targets in the dark ... You've got to create a light source outside for target acquisition ... Get outside and set off flares, no, wait, you don't have any flares in the car and there's no time to search so use something else, any source of light is enough ... Go!

  Gage pulled the pin on the phosphorous grenade, fired the engine of the LTD.

  He floored it.

  Closed, the garage door provided only the briefest resistance as the three-ton vehicle smashed into the wooden planks. The door exploded into jagged black shards and Gage was outside, sliding sideways on the gravel.

  He threw himself down sideways in the seat, felt rifle fire rocketing into the vehicle from every direction. He didn't try to steer but kept it to the floor, angling slightly to the right.

  Seconds gone!

  Make it happen! Make them go defensive!

  The LTD's rear window blew out beneath rifle fire.

  Enough!

  Gage estimated that the car had spun 40 yards. He would reach the tree line at 60. He jerked the steering wheel to the right and slammed on the brake, sliding sideways, spinning the automobile to create a ballistic break.

  He threw the door open, heard rifle fire, and then he was out with the MP5 and the duffle bag, low beside the car. He tossed the phosphorous grenade into the front seat and sprinted the 20 yards to the wood line, moving right as bullets shattered the trees behind him and the LTD exploded in a mushrooming blast that cast the entire glade into a violent and roaring white light.

  *

  The wind above Kertzman moved, a black patch sailing through the air. And that's when the object hit the wooden planks beside his feet. Instantly a half-dozen additional small objects hit the floor around the cabin.

  "Grenades!" yelled Kertzman.

  Deafening light!

  Kertzman's coat was blown open by the savage concussion, his face scorched by the stunning shock wave.

  Blinding! No fire!

  The explosions were stun grenades. Survivable, but everything was happening too fast. Kertzman swayed at the blasts, rocked by the concussion then somehow heard, beneath it all, a door kicked open and men rushing inside in the darkness.

  Kertzman almost fired a shot in the dark and then his finger froze on the trigger, an almost-gone control resurrected instantly that prevented him from shooting until he could acquire the target. He blinked in the dark, trying to see a shape as a sledgehammer hit him between the eyes.

  Kertzman cursed, stunned, as two men leaped upon him. One grappled with the Marlin while the other wrestled to imprison his neck and shoulders in a headlock. He howled and pulled the trigger of the Marl in. Thunder and fire exploded between Kertzman and the man in front of him, but the shot went into the ceiling, and the intruder grimly refused to release his iron grip on the rifle stock.

  Together in a hulking, grotesque mound of straining arms and hands, they twisted, spinning, in the dark. Then something massive hit Kertzman behind the neck.

  Stunned.

  Kertzman almost collapsed before he recovered, roaring, and surged with a scarlet rage. He whirled, hunching his shoulders to protect his neck. Frantically, breath blasting from his clenched teeth in a hissing curse, Kertzman pulled again at the Marlin and, even beneath the explosion outside the cabin, he felt the wooden stock crack against the twisting grip of his opponent.

  Descending hatefully, iron thunder in blackness hit Kertzman again in the back of the head, an earthquake that struck deep with a crashing, tree-trunk forearm. Groaning and then shouting in rage, Kertzman released the rifle to the second man to throw him back, and his right hand swept down, finding the Colt at his waist. Pulled it out.

  A huge forearm snaked around his neck, choking, lifting Kertzman completely off the ground. Kertzman quickly moved his arm across his chest to shoot behind his back when a two-handed vise closed on his right gun hand, crushing it with a merciless grip.

  Enraged, Kertzman growled wordlessly but thrust the Colt towards the man in front of him, the man who had grabbed his gun hand. Kertzman twisted against them both, heard the man in front cursing in a thick Oriental accent.

  The big man behind him hissed in anger and tension, while he squeezed, putting pressure on Kertzman's carotid artery to take him down with oxygen debt.

  Defiantly, his entire body trembling under the stress, Kertzman surged to move the gun barrel, inch by inch, towards the Japanese, who continued to squeeze his gun hand in a savage contest of brute strength. Jaw locked tight with the effort, Kertzman pulled inwardly in a volcanic effort, and moved the gun barrel closer to the chest of the Oriental.

  Heat and red pain and Kertzman felt himself quickly submerged in a conquering landslide of fatigue.

  Breath hot, strained and thin. Pain exploding inside his gun hand. Bones breaking.

  Too old ...for this!

  Don't give up!

  Kertzman strained his one arm against the Oriental's two arms, moving the Colt inch... by... inch!

  Kertzman fired a shot.

  Missed!

  But the explosion, so close beside them, shocked his two combatants. Together they twisted violently, screaming, trying to throw him down. Kertzman roared against them, staggering, face contorted with effort and surged again, wrenching the .45 toward the Oriental's shoulder and firing even as something cold slid across his forearm.

  Razor sharp.

  Kertzman shouted in agony. The Colt fell from his deadened hand and the giant threw Kertzman to the floor.

  He landed in a heap, groaning, feeling quick blood loss from his wrist. His right hand had lost all feeling and he quickly grabbed his forearm with his left hand, felt heavy blood spilling out of the wound.

  Lights. At once the cabin was illuminated again.

  Groaning, Kertzman rolled to his side, teeth clenched in pain, trying to find his footing. He turned, saw the room as it now stood. Through the front windows Kertzman saw a car burning in the front yard.

  Gage!

  Exhaling explosively, Kertzman looked up at the giant, a black man, incredibly muscular and almost seven feet tall but appearing even larger because of the oversized ballistic vest he wore on top of the black fatigues. The giant was sweating, glaring angrily at Kertzman and breathing heavily. He held a night visor in one hand.

  Kertzman scowled at him, looked away and saw the large Japanese, dressed in somber black clothes, moving quickly and efficiently across the room. He held a long, bloodied knife in his right hand and a night visor in the other. He stopped at the kitchen table and in quick, efficient movements gathered all the papers, including Father Simon's letter. Kertzman rememb
ered that Gage had destroyed the uncoded version revealing the manuscript's location.

  The Japanese lifted the papers, reading quickly but carefully. Then he looked at the back door where another man stood and shook his head.

  "They have destroyed it," he said somberly. "We must bring them."

  Sweating profusely in the cold night air, breath hard and deep with pain, Kertzman swung his slightly unfocused gaze across the room. At the closed back door, standing over the unconscious body of Barto, was a tall, older man wearing a brown tweed overcoat. Kertzman couldn't tell if Barto was dead or rendered unconscious. His big chest didn't seem to be moving. The tall man had a hand on the light switch.

  "Why didn't you just kill us?" Kertzman growled at the man, obviously the leader.

  The man smiled benignly. "Do not presume that this situation will necessarily end in further bloodshed, Mr. Kertzman. The plan was to take you all alive. There is no need for unnecessary alarm. In fact, there is even the chance that none of you will die." He paused. "Except Gage, of course."

  Kertzman said nothing. The man had given him the standard reply: Tell them something that won't alarm them further. Kill them all when it's convenient.

  He looked toward the kitchen to see a muscular, blond-haired man standing over Sarah Halder. She was holding her mouth, her hand and lips bloodied. She was hurt, possibly hit in the face to dislodge her grip on the pistol. But she was stoically silent, head bowed, not making a sound.

  Kertzman rose to his feet, hell in his eyes.

  "Sorry about all this, Kertzman," a man said.

  Kertzman turned, recognizing the voice and cursing the name as he saw the face. His words contained a terrible and deadly edge as he spoke.

  "Hello, Milburn," he said.

  *

  THIRTY-SIX

  Gage leaped across a blackened tree trunk that appeared abruptly in his path, hit the ground, and moved sharply left at the sound of his boots on the dry grass, instinct directing him.

  Shadows. Wind.

  White moonlight streaked over him through the splintered trees.

  Reacting instantly to the light he crossed back to the right, ran low through the night for 20 seconds, covering 100 yards in a tight half-circle to gain an angle of attack toward the rear of the cabin.

  He stayed deep inside the trees to avoid target identification by a perimeter guard, scanning tactics as he moved.

  ... Superiority of numbers only endures as long as there is order... Create chaos!... The simplest means for a small force to disorganize a large force is by sniper attack... Kill twice at a shooting nest before moving to the next... Move fast to create combination of chaos, terror, and attrition... Destroy their order to keep them from forcing a way into the cabin!

  He selected his initial sniper nest, instantly angled toward it. He moved close to a narrow but deep ditch that allowed a close, parallel retreat from the back of the cabin. The ditch led east to a small knoll; a secondary sniper nest. He would choose a third, and a fourth, each nest selected for the availability of a covered retreat and quick repositioning for continued fire.

  Attrition! Win by attrition!

  Moving fast, shadows flying over him, Gage spun left again, thorns raking his face. He ignored the pain and the blood and fell silently onto his chest as he neared the tree line, sliding forward.

  Crawling the final few yards with snakish slowness, he eased into the tall grass beneath the last tree at the edge of the glade, instantly bringing the MP5 up for single-action target acquisition.

  Empty.

  Alarmed, Gage focused on the cabin, saw frantic movement through the windows.

  Inside!

  They were already inside the cabin!

  He groaned, saw a figure stalking toward the back of the cabin. It was crouched, moving through the shadows. Hissing a silent curse, Gage was instantly on his feet and running forward. He switched to fully auto as he crossed the clearing, quickly and quietly.

  The front of the cabin was bathed in the white phosphorous fire that had consumed the LTD. He used the long shadow cast by the cabin for cover, closed on the silent figure.

  He caught the scent of gasoline, realized that the tank of the LTD had already blown. A quick glance of the entire glade revealed no cars, no intruder vehicles.

  They had entered on foot.

  An ambush.

  Sandman hadn't seen them until the last moment because of the thick woodbine. Not even the infrared night visor could read through a forest. And Chavez had probably not seen them at all as he had not taken a visor out with him earlier in the day.

  It took Gage 30 strides to reach the cabin, and he made no sound with the final steps, boots landing on the balls of his feet with a leaping, silent run. Somewhere in the closing distance, he couldn't be sure of the precise moment, he recognized the shape. Even before it spun and Gage caught a glimpse of the disfigured face and the patched eye, he knew who it was.

  From a combat crouch Chavez whirled and leveled the M-14 at him.

  Gage raised the MP5 in the air, his left hand empty and high and continued to close the gap. Chavez dropped the guard and turned back quickly toward the cabin, gazing carefully in a window.

  Chavez looked over at him, calm and calculating, held up a fist, two fingers raised. Then he drew his hand across his chest in a quick gesture.

  Symbol: Explosive door entry. Cross over once we get inside.

  Gage nodded, fell to the side of the back door, crouching, sweating in the cold, struggling to bring his strained breathing silently under control.

  Then he almost shouted in rage, leaping up from the crouch as Sarah screamed.

  Kertzman surged forward, shouting.

  But the giant grabbed him, slamming him against the wall. Milburn raised his Beretta, holding a cold aim.

  Kertzman glared sideways. In the kitchen, the blond-haired man was using a silver roll of duct tape to attach the bore of a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun to the neck of Sarah Halder. The roll went around her neck and both barrels once, twice, three times, locking the bore tight against her spine.

  "Schnell!" the blond hissed to the others.

  The Japanese stepped forward, moving with the disciplined calm of a man accustomed to violence and the heightened emotions of violent conflict. In seconds he had used the silver tape to attach the German's hand to the sawed-off handle of the weapon. He cocked both barrels.

  "We are ready," said the German coldly.

  Despite a lightheaded weakness that caused a soft focus at the edges, Kertzman concentrated on Sarah Halder. She had closed her eyes, set her mouth in a grim line. He knew that she was wrestling courageously to control a sheer terror, and she was succeeding. He nodded, admiring.

  Then, face rigid, he looked down, studying his wounded arm. It was not a fatal injury. It was almost impossible to die from a slashed wrist, or even two slashed wrists, for that matter.

  Usually a wrist injury, even if it was a deep cut that caused actual arterial bleeding, would simply bleed a person's blood pressure down to a point where blood did not exit the body any longer. But the body would retain enough fluid and glucose in vital organs to maintain life. It was an instinctive biological defense mechanism. Shock would come, yes, but not death. Kertzman wanted to forestall even the shock so he quickly undid his belt, wrapping it around his forearm slightly above the elbow.

  He blinked sweat out of his eyes.

  He worked quickly, heard Sarah yell out in pain as the German jerked her to the door.

  "Now we go outside!" the man hissed into her ear, leaning forward.

  Sarah's eyes were still shut and her lip and nose were still bleeding.

  Headlights flashed past the front windows.

  Kertzman glanced outside, saw a four-door rolling to a stop. Quickly, a man got out, walked through the glare of the headlights, around to the front of the cabin and came inside. Kertzman immediately recognized the walk, the silhouette, and the identity, had even expected it. His emotions h
ad already passed through anger to hatred to a smoldering cold control before the man entered the front door.

  Jeremiah Radford, point man for the NSA investigating team, stood in the doorway a moment, surveying. He looked past the frowning and strangely stoic Milburn, locking on Kertzman. He laughed.

  "You're really in it this time, Kertzman," Radford said jovially. "Washington is going to give your dead body a medal when this is over. You'll be a hero." He laughed again.

  The Nigerian spoke. "This is no moment for humor."

  "Oh, I think it is." Radford smiled, taking out a Smith and Wesson .45.

  Groaning against the pain, Kertzman ignored him and tightened the tourniquet around his arm. He glanced cautiously down, saw no weapons close. He hadn't worn a backup.

  "You're done this time, Kertzman," said Radford. "It's the end of the road. But don't worry. Do you want to know what the cover story is going to be?"

  Kertzman's slag face was impassive. He blinked sweat.

  Radford laughed. “I’ll tell you anyway, great white hunter." He walked closer. "You tracked Gage to this mountain. Then you called me for some backup because you didn't want to involve the locals. Security problems, all that stuff. You know how it is. They'll love that. Probably give you two medals. Anyway," he continued, "we came in real quiet, planning to just do some surveillance. But we stumbled into a trap. You and I got captured by the super-soldier. We found out that Gage had already killed the woman, her father, and the fat boy. Surprise! Gage was behind it all! Can you believe it?" He winked. "I can't."

  Kertzman's voice was dry, cracked. "It'll never work, Radford."

  "Sure it will," Radford said. "Gage kills them all. Then you and I find him, get captured, go for our guns. There's a big shootout. You, unfortunately, get killed. Gage gets killed. Your dead body is mourned by nobody. I get promoted." He smiled. "It's beautiful. Who's going to know? It's the perfect plan. Gage takes the fall for everybody."

  Kertzman lowered his head, face tight with pain, and jerked the belt tight at the right elbow. Then he tied it off and, exhaling with the agony of his wound, stepped toward the kitchen.