by Tyler Leslie
Davis was stunned. This creature was embracing everything that Karl Marx once stood for, everything the world had once sampled and spit back out in disgust.
“Your crusade will fail!” Davis interjected, “Humanity is far stronger than you assume it to be! Your forces will fall like the enemies of our past and be swept away by the sands of time.”
Arr’itaoll smiled and shook his head. “Mr. Martin, the world has undergone great change since the days of Hitler and Stalin. Things that were once the epitome of disdainful behavior are now commonplace practices. With the right fulcrum, the world will be taken with ease and made into the perfect Eden it always should have been.”
“Bring it on!” Davis spat. “Humanity will never allow the Scuratt’ka to flourish! You’ll be destroyed as surely as the two men you just referenced. You’re no better than either of them.”
Arr’itaoll struck Davis against the side of the face, knocking him out of the chair and onto the cold mud floor of the bunker.
“Your time will come, human. Prove to me you have the guts to back up your claims!”
Arr’itaoll opened the door to the enclosure and shouted something in Scuratt’kan to one of the soldiers. Immediately the soldier ran off, coming back within seconds, dragging a battered Scuratt’kan soldier behind him. The creature wore a similar black bag over his head as Davis had, but this creature looked far worse for the wear.
Arr’itaoll nodded to the soldier, who yanked the bag off the creature’s head and tossed it to Davis.
“You hold in your hand the life of this disgraced Scuratt’kan warrior, human. He fell in battle and as such is worthless to his race.” Arr’itaoll flashed another gleaming smile. “It is your choice whether he lives or dies, but be warned, this choice affects your very life.” Arr’itaoll turned to the battered and moaning creature. “Isn’t that right, soldier?”
Davis stared at the ravaged warrior before him. The creature was heavily built, with rippling muscles and a strong jaw line.
Davis glanced at Arr’itaoll, who was holding a pistol out to him expectantly. He knew his chances of shooting Arr’itaoll and escaping were remote at best; an armed guard was surveying the scene with steely yellow eyes. As a warrior, Davis had grown used to weighing all the possible outcomes of a scenario. This appeared to be one of those times where victory would be forever fleeting. Heart pounding, Davis gingerly reached out and took the human 9mm pistol.
Davis recognized the gun model; he had trained with it before in the target shooting classes on base. The weapon was extremely archaic, a Browning GP, made around 1940 and still sporting the trademark adjustable rear sight. The triggers on these pistols were inordinately heavy; he could use this to his advantage. Davis knew he couldn’t kill this creature, despite what he had likely done.
Blowing out his breath, Davis aimed the weapon right at the moaning creature’s chest. Arr’itaoll was regarding the situation with a detachment that no doubt had been honed from presiding over hundreds of these executions.
“Come on soldier, pull the trigger,” Arr’itaoll said loudly, “we haven’t got all day.”
Davis closed one eye and prepared to fire the heavy pistol. Just before gently squeezing the trigger, Davis allowed the weapon to shift slightly to the right. “BOOM!” The weapon spat fire and lead, taking a large chunk out of the wall directly behind the cowering prisoner.
“How disappointing, Mr. Martin.” Arr’itaoll clucked. “Allow me.” With that, he produced another similar pistol from his desk and placed a lead slug right behind the creature’s right ear. The warrior slumped over, spraying the nearby wall with blood and chunks of brain matter. Arr’itaoll shouted something to the nearby soldier, who saluted and dragged the corpse out of the building.
“That was most enjoyable,” Arr’itaoll said in an ironically emotionless tone. “I seem to have gotten some blood on my foot. Mr. Martin, would you be so kind?”
Davis glared at the man. He had never before met anyone—or in this case anything—so ruthless, so smug, and so pathetic. He limped over to Arr’itaoll and bent down to clean the blood off. With a resounding crack, Arr’itaoll whipped his leg up, connecting his foot with Davis’ nose and sending the dazed warrior across the room.
Davis landed on his back, hard. He tried to roll out of the tumble like he’d been taught in the endless training sessions, but was too dazed from the kick to pull off the move. Instead, he only managed to flop onto his stomach, coming to a rest with dirt filling his mouth. It was all he could do to muster up enough strength to raise his head enough to make eye contact with his enemy. This Warlord of vile creatures may have bested him for now, but he would never get the satisfaction of breaking his spirit.
The Warlord of the Scuratt’ka advanced upon the hapless Marine, a smug smile etched across his face. “There is no one to help you now, human. Embrace your fate.”
CHAPTER 18
Prince Davenport stood over the fallen corpses of the two assassins he had hired for the hit on Joseph Burns. What fools. The men had come highly recommended, yet had done such a low-rate job. Had they simply placed the car bomb as they had been instructed to do they would still have their lives.
He shuddered. Instead, for some inexplicable reason, the two men had invaded the man’s office complex and decimated the entire floor he routinely worked on. Why they would do such a stupid thing was a baffling thought in and of itself. The amount of damage control that had been necessary to clean up the mess had exhausted far too many of the Prince’s resources for his liking. Godfrey had been instructed to torch the entire building—an action that had caused a PR nightmare that nearly hadn’t been resolved.
Luckily, things were now back on track and everything was proceeding smoothly.
The royal businessman turned on his heel, swiping his coat tail across the floor, and walked through the doorway. He nearly ran into Godfrey as he exited the room.
The ‘child’ seemed flustered, and was holding a CD case in his hand. “My Prince,” he bowed low as usual, “I recovered a recording of the night the assassins staked out Burns at the restaurant, a week before he was taken care of. Would you care to see it? It will surely put to rest any concerns you might have regarding these men being thrown off course. Truth be told, they seem to be absolutely incompetent; that’s why they failed in their task.
The Prince sighed. This was surely a waste of his most precious time, yet he went against his better judgment and ordered Godfrey to play the CD.
The holographic display of a man sitting in a vehicle came online:
Coleman Rutherford sat in the passenger seat of his black Cadillac Escalade, training a pair of Nikon binoculars on the auspicious front of Aperitif restaurant. He took a voracious bite from his bologna and pickle sandwich and settled back in the worn leather seat. He had been waiting only a little more than a half hour, yet Coleman was feeling uncharacteristically anxious. What a ludicrous assignment, he thought to himself. It’s not like anyone is going to shoot up Joseph Burns while he and his wife are chowing down on their fancy French food. He took another bite of the sandwich, disgusted with the situation. Why was he, of all people, assigned this job? Coleman had quickly garnered quite the reputation for being incredibly enthusiastic and “off the wire” when it came to jobs. He preferred high-speed chases, even gun fights, to stake-outs and laying low. To him, nothing in the world was more boring than sitting here watching over a man who he was going to be murdering in the very near future.
The handheld radio sitting precariously on the dashboard crackled to life, eliciting a yelp from Coleman and a smattering of his sandwich innards flying into the vehicle’s passenger-side footwell. He quickly groped for the walkie-talkie, spilling more of his sandwich in the process and increasing the frequency of the screams emanating from the device. He finally got his stubby fingers around the device and pushed the talk button.
“What do you want, Ethan? I’m tryin’ to eat here!”
“What’s the situation? Has Burns been whacked yet?”
Coleman rolled his eyes. “No, Burns hasn’t been whacked, you idiot! No one’s expecting that to happen tonight! Ethan, what was it that Davenport told us to do?”
A slight pause preceded Ethan’s response. “He told us to watch Joseph and see if he gets clobbered…”
Coleman sighed, loud and forceful. “No, Ethan, he didn’t tell us to watch and see if he gets shot up, he told us to watch him and make sure that he doesn’t yet! Things have to go according to plan! You’re such an idiot, Ethan! Why would the Prince want us to just sit here and watch him get smacked? That wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”
“But I thought the boss wanted Joseph to be killed. Doesn’t Joseph have him in a thumb-hold?”
“Thumb-hold? What the heck does that even mean? No! Joseph doesn’t have anything on Davenport you twit; he’s just a business rival! If he did, you think he wouldn’t call the feds on us? Do you even remember some of the jobs we’ve gone through with? If Joseph knew about even a single one of those, we’d be toast!”
“Then why have I heard the boss talk about Joseph like he’s enemy number one?”
Coleman repressed another sigh; Ethan had never been very sharp, but this conversation was really pushing the boundaries of tolerance. “Joseph has the potential to be a serious threat to the Prince, but up till this point at least, he’s given us all the leeway we need to continue our operations. He don’t look our way, and we don’t look his way, got it?”
There was another pause as Ethan thought that one over. Finally: “But we’re looking his way now, so doesn’t that mean he’s seen us, too?”
Coleman threw his eviscerated sandwich on the driver’s seat and yanked open the door of the Escalade, throwing a furtive glance at the restaurant before running across the street to where Ethan’s Lincoln Continental was parked. Ethan was looking at a gentleman’s magazine and drinking some vile concoction he had always liked, not paying any attention to the restaurant or his target.
Coleman threw open the car’s passenger door and climbed in, slapping Ethan on the back of the head as he did so. Ethan coughed and spit his drink out all over the steering wheel, causing the scent of alcohol to pervade the interior of the vehicle. He looked over at Coleman, a hurt expression dominating his broad face. “What the heck was that for?” He cast a sorrowful glance at the bottom of his glass. “My drink…”
“Forget the drink, you imbecile!” Coleman raged. “What the heck have you been doing this whole time?!” He ripped the Playboy out of Ethan’s hands and tore it in half before tossing it on the back seat. Ethan started to protest, but thought better of it given Coleman’s icy stare.
Coleman started rubbing his temples vigorously. “This is not what we were told to do, Ethan,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice. He felt as if he were speaking to a wayward child. “Davenport told us to make sure Burns doesn’t run into any trouble, because he wants him killed in a very specific way.” The anger was beginning to return to his voice. “That means put the friggin’ magazine down, stop drinking that crap, and keep your eyes in those binoculars. If something does happen to Burns tonight, it’s on your fat head! The man’s got a lot of enemies and as such every little outing like this is a danger to him.”
Ethan looked down at his feet as he incurred the reprimand. Just like a kid, Coleman thought.
Coleman tried to cool his nerves. “Now look, Ethan. I need you to co-operate with me tonight, okay? Four eyes are better than two and if we can both stay awake and keep watching, everything will turn out okay. Right?”
Ethan looked at Coleman, attempted to feign a look of determination, failed the attempt, and resorted to a sheepish grin. “Sure thing, Cole.”
Coleman smiled. “Good, so we’re on the same page now.” He waited a moment. “And don’t ever call me that again. You know I’ve always hated that name!” He nodded at Ethan and started to extricate himself from the car, just as the front door of Aperitif swung open.
Coleman cursed and jumped back in the car with the grace of a tired hippopotamus. “Crap, get the binoculars out! Is that Burns?!”
The two men fumbled around the car, trying to locate the binoculars. “Aw, darn-it, Ethan, where the heck did you put those blasted things?! Ah, here they are-”
“Ow! That’s my leg, Cole!”
“Shut up and find me those spectacles!”
After a few agonizing seconds of rummaging amongst the debris scattered around the inside of the car, Ethan finally found the Nikon treasure and raised it to his pudgy eyes. “I can’t see anything! It’s not in focus!”
Coleman snatched the binoculars from Ethan and looked through the eye-piece. “Ethan, why the heck were these things not in focus to begin with? If that was Burns I’m going to strangle you with the steering wheel!” He finally got the lenses in focus and stared at the entrance. The door had long since shut, but luckily the couple that had emerged had stayed within reach of the porch. Coleman zoomed in a little more. It wasn’t Burns and his wife.
“False alarm, Ethan. It’s not them.” He started to relax into the seat when the blaring sound of a sports-car exhaust caught his attention. He jumped up just in time to see the red blur of Burns’ Aston Martin fly past them at warp speed. “Aw heck, Ethan, that was them! Get the car started and get on the gas!”
Ethan fumbled with the ignition, issuing curses along the way.
“They’re getting away, idiot! Spin that key faster!” Coleman drummed his fingers on the dashboard in eager anticipation. This was it! Finally a moment of exhilaration after the monotony of the past half hour.
Ethan finally brought the car to life, squealing out of the parking lot like a teenager who was just granted immortality. He began weaving in and out of traffic at nearly 80 miles an hour in a desperate attempt to locate Burns and his wife. “Where the heck did they go?” Ethan whined. “Cole, I think we lost them, man.”
“Shut up and drive, idiot! Pay attention to the road before you run us into a light pole! I think I see them up ahead. Step on it!”
Ethan stepped on it. They topped 90 several times in the next ensuing seconds, briefly catching glimpses of the Aston as they danced among the in-numerable taxi cabs and sedans full of night-life participants.
To make matters worse, and certainly more dangerous, it had started to rain. The torrential downpour wrote letters of scrambled light on the car windows. Headlights merged with tail-lights and the traffic became thick iridescent sludge. The Ferrari was lost in the rivulets of rain dancing across the windscreen.
Coleman’s heart began to beat like a drum. “Turn on your wipers, Ethan! What the heck are you doing driving without them! It’s raining like crazy!”
Ethan flicked the switch as if he had planned to do so all along, continuing to stare straight ahead as if transfixed by the lights.
After a few more minutes of horn blasts and hurried travel, the two men were forced to admit defeat. “We lost them!” Coleman cursed below his breath several times and pounded the dashboard. He allowed himself several seconds to cool down, then offered: “Well, it’s not like he was killed, right? We stayed with him as long as he was in the restaurant and it’s not like someone is going to be able to keep up with that thing.” He nodded to himself, pleased with his ability to rationalize the moment. Now all he had to do was convince Davenport of the same. “All right, Ethan, we succeeded in our mission, most of it anyway.” He glanced over at Ethan, trying to look as serious as possible. “Make sure you don’t tell Davenport about this little chase when we get back.”
“Sure thing, Cole. How about we grab some grub for ourselves when we get back?”
“Sounds good, but take me back to get my car first.”
Godfrey took note of the Pri
nce’s enraged expression, and fast forwarded the recording to the day of the attack.
Coleman Rutherford sat once again parked in his black Cadillac Escalade, right in front of the DelTek building. Before heading to work Burns had deposited his wife at her job before heading back into the city, and was surely on his way to the office. He was nothing if not thoughtful.
The Escalade sat sideways in a large parking lot, taking up two spaces with seeming disdain.
Coleman knew no one would question the car’s placement or attempt to move it. The people of New York knew who ran this town and were always happy to give Davenport’s employees a wide birth. Coleman was concentrating on his directive hard; he wouldn’t allow his mark to escape again.
He kept his binoculars trained on the traffic, waiting for the Aston Martin with the tenacity of a determined hunter. Despite his best efforts to remain focused, the sound of chips being loudly chewed kept forcing itself into his thoughts. He gripped his head with both hands, tossed the binoculars onto the passenger seat, cursed vividly, and turned around.
“Ethan! Stop smacking your lips like an over-weight cow! I can’t even think with that racket going on!”
Ethan looked as if he had just been caught by his parents doing something very, very wrong. He smiled sheepishly, as he always did, and replied: “Sorry, Cole.”
Coleman cursed again and returned to his “bird-watching.” After a moment, Ethan spoke up.
“So, uh, Cole… why are we here again? I mean I know why we’re here, but why exactly are we here?”
Coleman very nearly pulled his handgun out of the glove compartment and put a bullet in his partner.
“Don’t be a fool, Ethan! What the heck does that even mean?!” He began to rub his temples forcefully, “I swear sometimes your stupidity rubs off on me when you say things like that. Just keep your mouth shut and let me watch the road!”