by James Hunt
Blood dripped from Brett’s blade as the men squared off. Brett made the first move by lunging the blade forward to Derrick’s stomach. Derrick countered by twisting Brett’s arm. The blade dropped to the floor. A quick uppercut from Derrick sent Brett backward, and then a quick kick to Brett’s left knee sent him to the ground.
Derrick reached for the inside of his jacket to pull out his pistol, but Brett jumped from the ground, barreling into Derrick, taking both men to the floor. The two wrestled on the ground, Brett finally gaining the upper hand by placing his hand around Derrick’s neck. Derrick was able to pull his knees up in between himself and Brett to push him off, but it was too late. Brett was too strong and his weight crushed Derrick’s windpipe, ending the struggle. Brett tried to catch his breath but was interrupted by Chase turning the corner with a group of his own guards.
Chase glanced at the lifeless body of his brother and then back at Brett. Before the guards could draw their weapons, Chase was in front of them with his pistol out, emptying its clip into Brett. Most of the bullets flew into his vest, but some caught his arms and legs. Brett dropped to the ground on his back and started coughing up blood. Chase walked over to Brett with tears in his eyes and loaded another clip into the pistol.
Chase aimed the gun at Brett’s head and squeezed the trigger, continuing to do so until the clip had been exhausted, until Brett’s face wasn’t recognizable anymore.
Chase dropped to his knees next to Derrick’s body, the gun falling from his grasp. He stroked his brother’s lifeless face as tears started to roll down his cheeks. His body began shaking. His face was red with rage. He turned to his guards.
“GET THE GIRL!”
***
Jim rushed up the staircase, firing back at the guards. They burst through the door from the stairwell, finding themselves in a hallway with yellow security lights flashing and sirens blaring. Samantha was screaming something at him, but he couldn’t hear it over the sirens. She pointed at the door at the end of the hallway, and he saw her mouth Annie’s name. Jim sprinted toward the door, checking it with his shoulder as he jiggled the handle, but it didn’t budge. He pounded on the door. The sirens muffled his frustrated screams.
Suddenly he was thrown forward into the wall. A bullet drilled right into the Kevlar covering his back. Turning around, he saw five guards heading right for them. He shoved himself and Samantha toward a nearby wall for cover. Jim peeked around the corner and saw they were approaching fast. He tossed Samantha a pistol.
“Stay here.” Jim took cover on the opposite wall. Once he was in place, he signaled with his hands for her to take the two guards on the right and he’d take the two on the left. The guards rushed closer. Jim counted down with his fingers. Three… Two… One.
Jim and Samantha swung around the corners, and their bullets rained down on their assailants. Without any cover for the guards, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Once the guards were down, the sirens shut off but the lights still flashed.
“Are you okay?” Jim asked.
“Yeah, did the bullet go through your vest?”
Jim shook his head. The turning of the locked door handle made the both of them jump to their feet. Samantha reached the door first, and a bullet went right through her gut. She flew backwards and clutched her stomach as blood spread over her shirt. Chase moved the pistol to Jim before he could raise his rifle and shot him in the right shoulder. Jim fell backward, his rifle skidding across the tiled floor and away from him.
“Well, well, well. It’s a family reunion,” Chase said, his eyes still red with mourning tears for Derrick. “You’ve come such a long way, Jim. Farther than I thought you could go, but I’m afraid it’s been in vain.”
Jim looked over at his sister, whose eyes fluttered open and close. He sat up against the corner of the hallway wall with his left hand under his leg. He moved his fingers and felt something sharp. It was his blade.
Chase put the tip of his barrel under Samantha’s chin and raised it so he could look into her eyes. “It’s a shame you won’t be able to see your daughter die.” His face turned blood red while spit flew through his clenched teeth. “It looks like that honor will fall to your brother.”
Jim fumbled his fingers into the pocket under his leg where he felt the blade. He couldn’t lift his leg to make it easier to grab the blade without exposing to Chase what he was trying to do.
When Samantha’s head went limp and didn’t come back up, Chase turned his attention to Jim, whose fingers almost had hold of the blade.
“You’ve failed again, Jim,” Chase said, walking closer to him. “You failed to save your country. You failed to save your brother-in-law from himself. You failed to save your friends. You failed to save your sister.”
Chase knelt down, eye to eye with Jim, “And now you’ve failed to save your niece.”
Jim frantically grabbed at the blade and worked it up into his fingertips. Chase put the pistol to Jim’s forehead and pressed the barrel down hard.
“Do you think I should hurt her before I kill her?” Chase asked. “Or should I make it quick and painless?”
The blade slowly moved into Jim’s hand. Chase pressed the gun further into Jim’s skull. In one swift motion Jim lifted his leg, bringing the blade into the side of Chase’s neck. Blood spurted as Jim dug the blade in deeper and Chase gasped, coughing up blood before collapsing.
Jim grasped his right shoulder as he stood and hobbled over to his sister, checking her pulse. He felt a slight beat. She was still alive. Jim whipped around and went into the room Chase had exited from to look for Annie. He saw her curled up in the corner. Jim’s whole body shook as Annie ran toward him. He knelt down, scooping her up.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you too,” she responded.
Jim lowered Annie back down. “Stay right by my side, okay? I have to go and take care of your mom.” Annie nodded and grabbed hold of Jim’s leg. He pulled the girl outside, and Jim scooped his sister up with all the strength he could muster and threw her over his shoulder.
“Coyle,” Jim yelled into the radio. “I’ve got the girls. What’s your six?”
Coyle placed the last charge on the wall and clicked his radio on. “All set, Jim.”
“Twink,” Jim said, keeping an eye out for guards as he navigated the hallways, “Get the chopper and meet us on the roof.”
Dozens of empty shells surrounded Twink as he got up with his rifle. “Roger that.”
“Brett, meet us at the flight deck,” Jim said. He waited for a response, but nothing came. “Brett, do you copy?” Jim waited a bit longer. “Brett?” When no answer came Jim knew he was gone. “Twink, we need that chopper now. Like, ten minutes ago now.”
“Copy,” Twink said, “Inbound in three minutes.”
Jim managed to make it to the stairwell, but each flight of stairs he climbed shot daggers into his shoulder. Annie stayed right at his side, step by step.
They made it onto the flight deck and saw the chopper heading towards them. When Twink landed, Coyle appeared to help with Samantha. Jim rushed to the medical bag and grabbed as much gauze as he could to help staunch her bleeding. He strapped Annie in.
“Twink, get us to the nearest medical base. Tell them we have a priority. Gunshot wound to the abdomen with critical blood loss,” Jim ordered.
Twink complied, radioing the hospital to alert them. Once they were airborne and clear of the plant, Jim looked at Twink. “Blow it!” Jim ordered.
The charges lined the walls of the plant. Small red lights flashed on each of them. When Twink squeezed the trigger on the detonator, the charges went off one by one. Fiery explosions lit up the darkening sky. The pallets and storage tanks of VX gas incinerated into nothing.
The blasts took out more than just the warehouse. Jeeps, guards, surrounding structures, anything within a one hundred yard radius were leveled. Smoke rose into the air as the chopper increased its distance destruction behind it.
CHAPTER 10
Jim’s arm was in a sling as he sat in the waiting room of the hospital. Annie was on the floor playing with Tigs, oblivious to the stares that she received. A hospital wasn’t the typical place to see a cat, but Coyle convinced the nurse that Tigs was a therapy cat, then disappeared into the break room with said nurse.
The doctor came out of the operating room with blood on his scrubs, smiling. “She’s gonna be fine.”
“Can we talk to her?” Jim asked.
“She’s sleeping right now, but you can go and see her,” he responded.
Samantha was hooked up to a breathing machine, heart monitors, and IV bags. Annie climbed in bed with her and curled up next to her side. Jim put his hand on his sister’s forehead, breathing a sigh of relief.
***
Samantha was finally discharged from the hospital a week later, and the doctor told that she could go home as long as she didn’t do any heavy lifting. She and Annie stayed with Jim at his home in San Diego. Jim never thought he’d see that house again, let alone have his sister and niece’s laughter filling it.
Brett’s funeral was held a few days after Samantha was released. He received full military honors for his service and was also awarded the Navy Cross. Each of them tossed an item into the ground with Brett’s coffin.
Jim gave him his Purple Heart, Samantha dropped in a rose, Annie drew him a picture of the two of them, Coyle tossed in a Playboy magazine, and Twink dropped his dog tags in the hole with his friend. Once it was over, Twink headed back to his Naval base in Arizona and Coyle decided to take a little furlough since Jim still couldn’t get back to his marine mechanics business with his arm in a sling.
“We can talk about my raise when I get back,” Coyle smirked.
When Jim and Samantha returned home from the funeral, there was a car parked on the street in front of his house. Jim opened the glove box, removing his pistol. His shoulder was still in a sling, but he was pretty good with his left arm. “Stay in the truck.”
As Jim moved closer to his home, he noticed that the front door was ajar. He slowly pushed the door open and went in, pistol first. A man in the chair in his living room put his hands in the air.
“Don’t shoot.” Captain Terry Streak, Fleet Commander of the San Diego Naval base, sat in Jim’s living room chair.
A smile spread across both men’s faces as the captain walked over and they embraced each other. Jim leaned out the door and waved for the girls to come in.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t even know you were alive!” exclaimed Jim.
“Yeah well, after the attacks on the base five months ago, I was in a coma for about a month,” he said. “I just got out of rehab a few days ago. I’ll start command duty again in a couple of weeks after they catch me up on what I’ve missed.”
Jim placed his hand over the captain’s shoulder and smiled. “It’s good to see you, Terry, but what are you doing here? I’m not exactly in shape to fix any of your boats right now.”
Jim had seen the look the captain was giving him plenty of times before. It was the same look General Locke had when he asked him to come back and work missions for the military.
“No,” Jim said flatly.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!” Terry replied.
“I’ve given enough service to my country for a dozen soldiers. I’m out,” said Jim.
“We’ll be out back,” Samantha added. She pushed Annie and Tigs out the back door and left Jim and Terry alone.
“Jim, what you’ve been able to do has been incredible. I’m just here on behalf of the Defense Department as a messenger. I’m not here to have you sign any papers. They do want you back though. They’re willing to meet whatever demands you have.”
All of a sudden, Jim’s shoulder started to ache a little more than it had over the past few days. After a moment of silence, Terry continued.
“Just think about it. If you change your mind, phone me at the base.”
After Captain Streak left, Jim wandered toward the back of the house, stopping at the screen door. Annie chased butterflies as Tigs chased after her. Samantha sat in a chair, laughing as her daughter ran around the backyard with her net. The sun was shining outside and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Jim wasn’t sure how long this would last, but with the view he was looking at right now, he didn’t want to fill his mind with ‘what ifs.’
Streak could wait.
The Decay
Chapter One
Attack on Wall Street
The blank walls of the interrogation room stared back at Sacha with cold indifference. He repositioned himself within the uncomfortable steel chair he had been instructed to sit on for the past hour. The room was empty, as Sacha waited patiently for the two detectives to return. Across from him were two empty chairs. A crumpled Styrofoam cup with the residue of black coffee rested on the metal table. Sacha didn’t care for coffee. In fact, he had never had a cup his entire life. Maybe he was missing out. He probably could have used one, but had declined. He’d seen enough American detective shows to know that the two men were trying to determine whether or not he could be implicated in some kind of terrorist plot. The techniques they used to press him seemed as if they’d already come to the conclusion that he was guilty of something.
“This is not good,” Sacha thought sardonically. “They could kick me out of the country for this.”
He knew that he was being watched. He could feel it. There was a hidden camera somewhere within the confines of the miserable room. Sacha scanned the walls and ceiling, and at first, saw nothing. White walls. Gray carpet. One of those paneled ceilings with overhead lights. His eye caught a slight flicker adjacent to the incessantly buzzing florescent bulbs. He looked up again and saw a small white plastic bubble at the corner of the ceiling tile.
“Yes,” he surmised, “There it is.”
He was all too familiar with Soviet surveillance, at least in his native Poland. In the last century alone, Poland had survived Nazi invasion and over 30 years of Communist control. He was a small child when the big bear relinquished its hold on Poland and gave sovereignty back to her people. It was a significant moment in his life. Then, he’d always dreamed of coming to America, especially during those pre-democracy days. New York City was the ultimate vision. But now he was being held as a suspect in a terrorist act of a magnitude he could only imagine.
Suddenly, the door opened and the two detectives re-entered, appearing as clueless as before. Their crest fallen faces could only mean one of two things. They either had no further reason to hold him or expected him to capitulate in some unexpected fashion. The older of the two approached him first. His towering height, mammoth frame, and crew cut made him a daunting figure as he tossed a stack of files onto the table. Both men smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Sacha wondered if their recent absence had been little more than a cigarette break. The other man, shorter and stockier with a red, puffy face, spoke with a heavy New York accent. But Crew Cut’s monotone droll sounded like it could have come from anywhere but the city.
“Mr. Kaminski, Lieutenant Harris and I appreciate your patience,” Crew Cut said, while pulling Sacha’s passport out of the file and waving it in the air. “Everything you’ve said so far checks out, and we have found nothing in your history to indicate suspicious activity of any kind.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sacha said, in a feeble attempt to sound casual and relaxed.
“But we’re not entirely done here,” Lieutenant Harris, Red-Face, quipped, as he took a seat across from Sacha. “The only thing we do know is that we can’t be certain about anything.”
As if on cue, Captain Banks took a seat next to Red Face, carefully opened the file, and leisurely thumbed through its pages. Sacha’s anxiety and frustration grew with each passing second as he countered.
“I don’t understand. I thought you were going to release me. Why was I picked up in the first place?”
Lieutenant Harris held up his han
d for silence. “That will do, Mr. Kaminski. For the record, yes, you haven’t been charged with anything, but you must understand, your proximity to an attack of this magnitude is cause for immediate concern. Standard protocol states, and by that we mean federal protocol, in the event of a catastrophic event, those taken into custody are detained indefinitely, or until federal officials complete a thorough investigation.”
“Yes, but—” responded Sacha.
“Look, there’s nothing we can do but follow protocol,” Banks replied. “We have our rules, and they have theirs. Do yourself a favor, Mr. Kaminski, and tell us what you know, what you saw, and why you happened to be in close proximity of the attack.”
“Tell you what?” Sacha asked in exasperation.
“We need to know what you saw, what you heard, and who you spoke to before you are free to go,” Harris said. He pulled out a mini tape-recorder and carefully placed it on the table.
Sacha looked perplexed but suddenly turned to the men. “I will tell you everything, because I have nothing to hide. You will see. I can speak freely.”