by Roger Weston
“Is this Lazar?”
“Yes,” Chuck yelled to be heard over the gunfire.
The medic pulled a straight jacket out of his pack. “Help me put this on him.”
“He’s bleeding, man.”
“This first. I have orders.”
They forced Lazar into the straight jacket while commandos were landing on shipping containers nearby and returning fire against Lazar’s Black Cobra terrorists.
“Navy SEALs and OFFSHORE commandos,” the medic said. “They’re my priority. I’ll deal with this psyco later.” He ran back behind another row of containers.
The SEAL and OFFSHORE paratroopers—those still descending— were taking casualties, but they rained gunfire on the Black Cobras, turning the deck into a deathtrap for many. Their flash suppressors worked well, but they were still visible from below thanks to the green light that filled the sky. The constant lightening flashes exposed them even more. The wind that made their descents so dangerous now worked to their advantage as they were moving targets. It also distracted them with the need to navigate their landings. To miss the flight deck was to die in the ocean.
Chuck saw a Black Cobra gunman atop one of the many containers around the bow. He was aiming skyward when a paratrooper took him out.
More SEALs touched town, cast off their chutes, and joined their fight. Two others were evidently dead because they landed in the water. No SEAL alive would miss a landing zone the size of an aircraft carrier. They were dead.
By now the gunfight was in full swing. The SEALs and OFFSHORE commandos were hitting the Black Cobras from the other side, but they were outnumbered so it was careful work. Every one of them knew all about what happened in Panama years ago, and they weren’t about to rush the Black Cobras across an open deck. Chuck was behind the Black Cobras, but he was all alone. Looking around the corner of a shipping container, he saw four Black Cobras moving after him. Two of them were dropped, and Chuck realized that the SEALs had wisely landed a couple of snipers atop the superstructure.
The snipers worked quickly, thinning out the numbers of those trying to kill their SEAL comrades. Their flash suppressors made them harder to spot, but it didn’t take Chuck long. Just as he pinpointed the location of a sniper, he was horrified to watch an RPG clip the roofline next to him and explode.
Taking cover behind a row of shipping containers, Chuck had problems of his own. He saw that two BCs were trying to out-flank him. They were going to attack him from both sides at once.
He took out the first attacker and was about to change his magazine when Dante Brulé leapt around the corner. He was big and intimidating and had the gaze of a tiger. He wasn’t looking at Chuck like a man; he was looking at Chuck like a slab of raw meat that he was going to devour.
Brulé walked toward him and Chuck could feel the threat. He could feel the presence. He could sense the tiger’s soul.
Brulé circled him a couple of times, looking him up and down with a sneer on his face. “I’m gonna enjoy this, Brandt.”
After a few more steps, he lunged at Chuck and unleashed a flurry of punches. His arms slashed like the blades of a blender.
Chuck ducked and weaved and somehow escaped half a dozen swings before Brulé landed a series of harsh blows to his face and body. Chuck slammed back against a container. Half dazed, he swayed on his knees.
Now he knew that he had a problem on his hands. Brulé was a powerful man with long arms that gave him a reach advantage, and his big fists looked as brutal as battering rams. Plus, he was fast.
Beyond the cover between the cargo containers, a gun battle raged on, but Chuck and Brulé were oblivious to their surroundings.
Chuck pivoted to the side.
Brulé threw a jab at his face that missed, but he followed up with a round house that crashed into Chuck’s eye. The force was tremendous. Chuck staggered backwards, thankful to be standing. Brulé grinned as he pursued Chuck. Brulé was so big that Chuck felt like he was being pursued by a predator. Brulé faked another jab, but then delivered a series of body shots. Chuck was pounded backward. He fell and rolled away from the threat, sprung up onto his feet, and hoped for the best, but he was hurting badly.
Brulé smiled. “You’ve met your match, Brandt. I’m going to kill you.”
Brulé circled him and smiled. His arms and fists whipped through the air in a blurred fury. Chuck bobbed and weaved and landed a body shot. Just when he thought he’d survived the attack, a wild swipe tagged him in the stomach. He buckled over. Brulé’s shoe then rose and made contact with Chuck’s face. The kick launched Chuck backwards, flexing his back. He landed hard, his head hitting the deck with a crack. Gunfire raged all around but Chuck and Brulé were fighting behind cover. Chuck got up as fast as he could, but the killer pursued.
Another jab laid Chuck out on the steel again. Alarm bells in his brain went off because he realized he’d better do something fast or Brulé would finish him off. Chuck feigned an attempt to gain his feet, but he was working himself into position. Just as Brulé went for another face kick, Chuck dove low and swept Brulé’s plant leg right out from under him. The big man dropped like a sack of potatoes. His landing made a grotesque thud sound. He grunted in pain.
Chuck was slow to gain his feet, and when he did, he was once again facing Dante Brulé—Black Cobra assassin, sad excuse for a human being. Extremely dangerous.
Now Brulé was giving Chuck that cold measuring enraged tiger’s gaze, and Chuck didn’t like it.
Brulé pursued. He jabbed Chuck in the face several times. Chuck counter-punched but missed as Brulé bobbed his head. Brulé circled, and Chuck mirrored him. Using his long arms, Brulé delivered another jab. Chuck’s head snapped backwards. He felt dazed from the shock of the blow, but not for long. Brulé followed through with an upper cut that caught Chuck under the chin. His head snapped back, and pain set in. Brulé was moving in for the kill. He ventured just a little too close. Chuck unleashed a smash hand at his face, but Brulé turned his head slightly, enough to protect his eyes. Still, the open hand shot at the side of his face must have rattled him because he backed off a little.
He pointed at Brandt. “Now you die!”
Chuck didn’t like to hear that, especially when he was rattled from that pounding. He stood there and crossed his arms over his chest, as if he had no further intention of defending himself. He stood there looking dazed and vulnerable as if he was either thinking the situation over or just ready to give up. Brulé smelled blood and moved in to finish off his wounded prey.
As he closed the gap between them, Chuck’s arm exploded from his crossed-arm position. He delivered a devastating crosswise ax hand to the side of Brulé’s head, striking with tremendous force below the ear. Brulé collapsed.
Gun fire continued all across the flight deck, everywhere it seemed, except for the protected area between the shipping containers where Chuck and Brulé engaged in a timeless battle to the death.
Chuck thought he was out, but like a bad dream, the killer struggled up onto his knees and shot daggers at Chuck with his eyes—eyes of hate and fury. Brulé stood up and pulled a knife.
Chuck didn’t like that because Brulé had the reach on him.
A grenade exploded nearby, but neither Chuck nor Brulé paid any attention.
Brulé crouched and spread out his arms like a spider on a huge web. He swiped the blade at Chuck, pushing him back. He swiped again, and the blade cut Chuck’s elbow. Chuck yelled in anger as he felt the blade scrape bone. Brulé was backing him against a shipping container, so Chuck fled to the left. Brulé went after him, leading with his knife.
Brulé swiped at his throat. Chuck ducked it and scrambled. Brulé waved the knife through the air.
“This is for you, Brandt. This is how it ends. Now is the time. I will bleed you out on the deck.”
Chuck backed away. He dodged another swipe and fled the blade.
OFFSHORE paratroopers were still landing, floating down into a gunfight. In his periphe
ral vision, Chuck saw a Black Cobra shot off a container stack. He fell twenty feet and lay on the deck.
Gunshots filled the air as Black Cobras battled the Navy SEALs.
Brulé closed in. Once more, Chuck backed away.
Then, going for the kill, Brulé charged.
Just before landing, a paratrooper fired three shots. All three slugs tore into Brulé’s chest. The big man crashed down on the deck and slid toward Chuck like a hockey puck. He stopped sliding right in front of Chuck.
Bullets riddled the paratrooper. He landed by Chuck, but he was already dead. Chuck took his M-16.
Shots were fired, and Chuck answered them. A Black Cobra sprawled backwards off a container and plunged downwards through the air. His hands whipped out to the side and his assault rifle flew to the deck. Chuck dropped three shooters. He used the chaos to his advantage.
***
Lying on his belly on the freezing deck, despite the agonizing pain in his crushed legs, General Lazar was processing the calculus of changing circumstances. He struggled to get free of the straightjacket, but he could not. It was clear to him now that he had failed. Unfortunately, he had vastly underrated Brandt.
***
As tracers flew overhead in the night, the corpse that Chuck was fighting next to—Brulé’s corpse—made a fast movement.
Chuck shouted with fear and surprise. The corpse was alive. It had been a ruse. Brulé’s flak jacket had saved him. He brought his handgun up, but when Chuck leapt toward him, he got into too close for Brulé to get an easy shot given that he was on lying on his stomach. Not only that, Brulé had no gloves on, so his coordination was not the best due to numb fingers. Chuck’s feet ran over the back of Brulé’s head and his back before Chuck spun and kicked his shooting hand like it was a football. The gun flew but only about ten feet.
With his free hand, Brulé swiped at Chuck’s other ankle.
Chuck hit the deck hard. He rolled away from Brulé and gained his feet. So did Brulé. The big man bowed down now and dove at Chuck, trying to pile-drive him back to the deck. Chuck slammed his wrists down at the back of Brulé’s neck in the brachial plexus region, driving the big man down onto his chest again as he charged.
At the same time, Chuck used Brulé’s body weight stutter step backwards and keep his legs away from Brulé as he pushed the big man down. Chuck ended up with his hands on the back of his neck, pushing his face against the deck. Brulé rolled away, but he left a patch of facial skin frozen to the deck. Now his left cheek was bleeding.
He took two bare-fisted swings at Chuck. With his speed, big arms and long reach, both connected, ringing bells in Chuck’s head. Brulé wasn’t done. He seized the advantage and went in for the kill. He landed several more blows to Chuck’s face. Then Chuck ducked a swing and landed a body punch. Brulé buckled forward, but it was just a ploy. He ran his shoulder into Chuck’s stomach as he grabbed Chuck behind the knees. This time he drove Chuck backwards to the ground.
Chuck landed on his back with his arm around Brulé’s neck but Brulé was in too close to choke him, so Chuck clawed at his eyes then rolled him over. Chuck now had him pinned down, but a fusillade of bullets slammed into the shipping container behind him.
Chuck tensed for just a moment, and Brulé punched him in the gut and knocked him over.
As Chuck landed on his back, Brulé dove across him, pinning Chuck’s elbows up high so that he could not use his arm effectively. Then Brulé began kneeing Chuck in the side of ribs.
Chuck was in no position to land any effective blows, so once again he jabbed at Brulé’s eyes until he warded the killer off of him. Brulé rolled away frantically as more bullets banged into the shipping container behind Chuck.
Brulé ran for his gun, and Chuck went after him. Brulé wrapped his fingers around the handgrip, but as he came up Chuck chest kicked him. Brulé was blown backward over the edge of the deck. By some miracle, he managed to grab hold of a horizontal support pole that held up the safety nets around the edge. He was hanging over a ten-story drop into the freezing Antarctic waters, where the life expectancy was just a few minutes.
He hung there for a few seconds and laughed. He tried to climb back up but he found that his bare hands were frozen to the metal. He struggled but they would not come free, so he forced the issue. He ripped his right hand away from the metal pole, but when the raw skinless flesh of his palm grabbed hold of the net, he screamed in pain, lost his grip, and plunged downward into the waters far below, screaming as he fell.
Chuck never saw him splash into the ocean because he came under fire, ran and dove back behind the shipping container where his rifle was. Unfortunately, before he could even recover his weapon, three grenades flew over the container. Chuck ran and jumped overboard. He dropped several feet and landed on a short catwalk as the explosions occurred. Shrapnel blew harmlessly over his head because he was over the side and five feet down on the catwalk. Bullets stitched the deck above. Climbing back up there would get him killed. Fortunately, the short catwalk he was on gave him access to the side-wing superstructure above the jet elevator, which hung open several stories down like a tongue hanging out of a dog’s mouth.
Chuck looked ten stories down at the whitecaps far below. He climbed up on the rail and leapt out across the abyss. He flew for several feet and grabbed onto the framing of the side-wing superstructure. Now he was hanging over the ocean just as Brulé had been, only Chuck had gloves on.
He wrapped an elbow over the bar he was hanging from and with his free hand removed the rope slung over his shoulder. He reached the loop around a section of framing then pulled the end through the loop. Then he pulled like mad until he’d pulled the whole length through the eye. Now the rope was secure. The end was whipping below him in the wind.
Chuck transferred to the rope and slid downward, nothing below him but ten stories of freezing air and then the uncaring ocean. At the end of the rope, he was still nine stories above the ocean.
He had run out of options. He swung his legs until he got the rope swinging. A Black Cobra leaned over the edge and started shooting at him. Chuck swung over seven feet and dropped onto the jet elevator.
As he looked up, two more shooters appeared at the edge of the deck, and Chuck darted into the covered hangar deck. Leaning down as he jogged by piles of supplies, he grabbed another length of rope.
There was no time to waste because the SEALs and the OFFSHORE commandos were still fighting for their lives. Chuck made his way back up to the flight deck. He ran back to the containers, diving to the deck by a dead man. He recovered the man’s assault rifle and using the body for cover unloaded on the enemy. He then rolled behind a shipping container and climbed up on top of it.
***
Perched high upon the shipping containers, Chuck was taking heavy fire. Then his magazine ran out of bullets, and he knew he was in trouble, especially when a Black Cobra appeared around the corner of a container and reached for a grenade. What the man didn’t realize is that he had just stepped into a trap. He was standing in a circle of the rope that Chuck had laid out. Chuck yanked the rope and the noose tightened around the killer’s ankle. With the other end wrapped around his hand, Chuck rolled off the far side of the container, which was stacked on another container. It would have been a free fall, but as the Black Cobra was pulled upside down by the rope around his ankle, his weight slowed Chuck’s descent. When Chuck touched down on the deck, he let the rope go. He heard a thud on the far side. Then an explosion hit the far side of the containers.
Just as Chuck was about to ambush the Black Cobra assassins for the second time, they fled toward the bow. Then dozen more men pursued them.
The SEALs and OFFSHORE commandos had the Black Cobras in retreat.
That was it. The Black Cobras were finished. Terminado. Adios.
It was all over in a few more minutes. The SEALs outgunned nine of the assassins. The other three, knowing they were doomed, cast themselves off the deck of the aircraft carrier into the
sea. Their screams told the whole story.
Back on the main deck, Chuck located General Lazar. He was alive, but both of his legs had been crushed by a falling satellite dish. One leg was almost cut off at the knee. He was struggling against his straight jacket.
“Get this thing off me!” He was in shock and ranting wildly. “Brandt,” he said. “Brandt!”
“Just hold on.”
An OFFSHORE helicopter landed on deck.
“Kill me,” Lazar begged. “I can’t take the pain.”
Chuck saw Jeff get out of the helicopter. Maria entered the scene from somewhere. She spotted him and started in his direction.
“What about all the pain you were going to inflict on others?” Chuck said to Lazar.
“I was born to dominate. It was my destiny.”
“They were right to put you in an asylum, Lazar. You’re a sick man.”
“The glory. The glory!” Lazar cried out. “It’s gone. Gone!”
“You’ll survive without it,” Chuck said.
“Just leave me to die. It’s my ship. Just leave me here to die.”
“No chance,” Chuck said. “You’re a wanted man. You’re going to another asylum.”
“I’ll kill you, Brandt.”
“You had your chance. If you get another, I’ll be ready for you.”
“I won’t live as a cripple.”
“Millions of people do that much. I’m sure you can do it too—in the mental institution.”
Maria kneeled down beside him.
“It’s okay, Father. We’re all crippled in one way or another. Mostly it’s in our minds though. You’ll get better.”
“You betrayed me!”
“I still love you, father. You’ll get the help you need.”
“Shut your mouth! Never talk to me like that!”
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Chuck rose and walked toward the helicopter. He saw OFFSHORE commandos securing the area. They were checking everywhere for hidden Black Cobras. Six of them entered the superstructure. That would keep them busy for a while.