Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4)

by Jack Murphy

  As the blade master advanced toward a cave opening he had spotted, the dark elf could see King Krag cast a spell, surrounding himself with blue light as the healing potion took effect. Then he charged at one of the ice giants. Behind Krag, the blade master slid down a snowy slope and disappeared into the opening of a cave.

  “What in the hell is that guy doing?”

  King Krag continued to swing his broadsword, blocking the ice giant’s club with his shield and then slashing again until finally, the giant collapsed with a thud. In the meantime, a mammoth had stormed across the tundra and joined the fray, engaging Krag with his tusks.

  Minutes went by with Krag turning the tundra into a bloody killing ground of dead NPCs. The blade master suddenly burst out of the cave, running straight toward Krag, who was now fighting it out with another ice giant. Right on his tail, a long line of ghouls, ghosts, and orc lords chased the blade master.

  “A dungeon train,” the dark elf said to himself. “Son of a bitch.”

  The blade master bumped right into Krag as he parried an attack from the giant, then cast a potion of invisibility on himself and disappeared. The entire dungeon train then crashed right into Krag. He was surrounded by a dozen high-level NPCs and was soon taking a beating. He cast another healing potion on himself, but there was no way he was fighting his way out of this one.

  “That should do it,” the blade master said, reappearing at the dark elf’s side as the potion wore off. Krag was hacking and slashing furiously. The ice giant was down, but Krag was getting pounded by dark magicka from the ghouls and from the war hammers wielded by orc lords.

  “But you need to get credit for the kill. It won’t count if he gets slain by NPCs.”

  The blade master drew his crossbow and loaded it with an explosive quarrel.

  “You sneaky bastard.”

  He hefted the crossbow to his shoulder and sighted in on King Krag as he was knocked down to his knees. Staggering back up, he was now covered in his own blood.

  “Wait for it.”

  The two watched as Krag's HP points diminished. The blade master waited until the final moment, then let the quarrel fly. It struck Krag right between the shoulder blades and exploded in a brilliant phosphorus flash. Krag fell face-first into the snow, dead.

  “Let’s get out of here before he respawns and comes looking for us,” the dark elf suggested.

  The blade master was silent.

  “Hey? You hear me?”

  He just stood there, not saying a word.

  “Hello? What the hell is going on?”

  Chapter 13

  American Arctic

  “What the hell is going on?” Deckard asked as he looked up from the computer screen.

  Off in the distance, the ocean was glowing orange.

  “I thought it was the Northern Lights at first,” Squirrel said. “But that’s a different kind of light. We’re not far off the coast of Alaska now, and those are the offshore oil fields.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Engineers and scientists had demonstrated that the Alaskan Arctic contained 40 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil and in the neighborhood of 210 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. America’s long-term energy plan to become less reliant on the often unstable Middle East only helped speed up the process of drilling off the coast.

  Companies like Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, and their own employer, Xyphon, had developed crash programs to build offshore oil rigs all over the Arctic, a region reputed to hold up to a quarter of the world’s fossil fuels. While Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves amounted to about 260 billion barrels of oil, the Arctic may have as much as 580 billion barrels. Like the Middle East, the Arctic was now ripe for conflict.

  “They did this because of us,” Deckard said.

  “What?”

  “Just like Saddam set the oil refineries ablaze to try to delay the coalition advance during the Gulf War, the enemy blew up at least one of the oil rigs to try to prevent our pursuit.”

  “We're on their tail, then.”

  “Probably closer than we suspected, and they are out of options. Get us around the fires. We’re going into the northeast passage.”

  The radio bolted above the helm suddenly chirped.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the surviving crew of Hillhorn platform! Mayday, mayday, may—”

  “Shit,” Deckard said. “I'm going to wake up the boys and get Otter up here. Then we’re going to find out where the hell Global Hawk is and hunt these bastards down.”

  Squirrel looked into the looming flames, his eyes filled with uncertainty.

  * * *

  Jeff Dombrowski was the junior driller on the Hillhorn gas and oil platform, or at least he had been until an hour ago. Huddled under the plastic tent that protected them inside the octagonal inflatable life raft, he stared across at Alan, the assistant rig manager; Roger, the senior toolpusher; and John, their rig maintenance supervisor.

  The wind had shifted, and now the four men watched helplessly as their life raft was pushed back toward the sea of fire. The Hillhorn and the Fitzpatrick platforms had both exploded at the same time, something that wasn’t supposed to be possible outside of sabotage. As far as any of them knew, they were the only survivors.

  A wave lapped over the side of the raft, cold ocean water seeping inside. Roger was staring into space. Somewhere else. Anywhere but here.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” John cried into the handheld emergency radio.

  A burst of static emitted from the radio.

  “Roger, Hillhorn,” a scratchy voice said on the other end. “This is the Carrickfergus. Give us a grid, over.”

  Jeff nearly jumped out of the raft as he grabbed the GPS.

  “It’s not working,” he said as he played with the settings.

  “Satellites have been acting weird for a couple of days,” John said. “We have a hell of a big Roman candle out there to act as a beacon, though. I’ll try to guide them in.”

  Jeff unzipped and tossed open the plastic covering. The sea slapped against the side of the raft, spilling more water inside that sloshed around and gathered around their feet.

  John poked his head outside.

  “Carrickfergus,” he said into the radio. “GPS is a no-go. What is your current heading?”

  * * *

  The exhausted survivors of the Hillhorn blast were pulled aboard the Carrickfergus nearly an hour later. Their beards were soaked and frozen, their eyebrows drooped. Each of them walked around like a zombie, not even aware of the strange ethnicities of the crew members who pulled them onto the ship.

  “Hey,” a tall American with a chiseled jaw said. Jeff looked up at him.

  “I’m Pat. The boss wants us to get you in some warm clothes, and then he wants to see you four on the bridge.”

  “Yeah, OK.”

  He looked up above the ship. Fluttering in the wind and glowing orange as the oil rigs burned in front of them waved the Jolly Roger. Looking back down, he then noticed the pistol and spare magazines Pat had strapped to his belt under his open parka.

  “Let’s roll.”

  The four survivors followed after Pat as he led them inside. They could already feel the Carrickfergus shifting under their feet, turning to go around the fields of fire. The Hillhorn crew members blinked in disbelief. There were machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, open metal cans of ammunition, and porn mags lying all over the place. Men wearing snow camouflage who looked to be of a dozen different nationalities were prepping their gear, looking like they were ready to launch World War Three.

  Pat took them down a flight of metal steps to a changing room in front of the showers where they had some space. Another camo-clad man stepped in behind them, said something in Russian, then dropped a box at their feet. After looking inside, they didn’t need Pat to tell them what to do. The crewmen stripped off their soaked clothes and then tore into the box of brand new thermal underwear, pants, and jackets.

  “What
is it you guys do, exactly?” John ventured.

  Pat leaned to the side with one hand propped against the wall, the other at his hip.

  “We’re corporate trouble shooters.”

  “Oh yeah? Does trouble shoot back?”

  “Oh, fuck yeah. C’mon, grab some towels to finish drying off and we can go get this meeting over with. Then we can get you some chow.”

  Back in the bay, they then climbed another set of stairs that was vertical to the point of being a ladder, then ascended to the bridge. It was pretty easy to identify the ship’s captain behind the helm by his big, bushy beard and coffee cup in one hand. The younger guy working the sea charts was obviously the first mate. A third guy, who wore a Patagonia pullover, looked up from his laptop with bloodshot eyes.

  Walking around the desk, he sized up the four oil rig workers.

  “We owe you big time, man,” Jeff thanked him.

  “Don’t mention it. I’m Deckard.”

  He shook all of their hands, but the boss didn’t look happy. As he lit up a cigarette, Jeff noticed the scars on his knuckles. He’d worked around the oil industry long enough to know that this guy had been in a few brawls.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” John said, “what exactly is it that you guys do?”

  “We’re mercs,” Deckard said without missing a beat. “We kill cunts.”

  “Um, what?”

  “Let me put it to you this way. If some jag-off dictator takes over a country somewhere, they call in the 82nd Airborne or the Marines. If some douchebag hijacks a nuclear weapon, they call in SEAL Team Six or Delta Force. But if some X-factor comes out of left field in a blur, steals a super weapon that can end the world, and then takes off in a high-tech stealth boat, they call me and my boys.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Deckard said as he frowned and looked out the window. “Every fucking time.”

  The four survivors looked at each other, wondering if they had just entered the Twilight Zone.

  “You lost a lot of men on those rigs,” Deckard said, his voice detached from the human toll of the disaster.

  “I think we’re the only ones left,” Jeff said.

  “I'm sorry, this is my fault.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m chasing someone who doesn’t want to be found. They ordered this strike against your oil platforms to delay us.”

  “What strike?”

  “I just found out myself. Ballistic missiles launched from civilian container ships traveling along the northwest sea passage. Russian authorities are moving in now, but the ships are flagged in Liberia and the crews probably had no idea what they were carrying. Knowing the MO of the guys I’m after, the cargo containers on board were probably fully automated and received an electronic go-code from afar.”

  John shook his head. None of it made sense.

  “Look, you guys must know this area and I could use your help.”

  Deckard walked over to the first mate, who was looking over the sea charts.

  “The vessel we are looking for is about a two hundred-footer. We think they’ve been leaking a lot of fuel and probably haven’t been able to make a lot of repairs while underway. If they had to make a quick stop to refuel and try to patch up their hull, where do you think they would go?”

  “Only one place to go.”

  Everyone turned to look at Roger, who had only just spoken for the first time.

  “Where?” Deckard asked.

  “Barrow, Alaska,” he answered. “The northernmost city in America.”

  Chapter 14

  American Arctic

  Old Uncle Joe teased his fishing line one more time, watching it dance in the hole he had cut through the ice. Holding the fishing pole between his knees as he sat on a folding chair, Joe reached down and palmed a Mason jar, moonshine sloshing around at the bottom. His fingers spun off the top and he took a swig from the half-empty jar. It burned all the way down, filling the fisherman with warmth.

  Squinting his eyes in the darkness, he tried to focus. Maybe it was the moonshine playing tricks on him, but he thought he’d heard something out on the ice. Well, never mind. He screwed the cap back on the moonshine and set it on the ice. Exhaling a cloud of vapor into the cold air, Joe wondered if he would ever get a bite.

  Suddenly the ice split and cracked in front of him, nearly tipping over his chair. Joe looked up with wide eyes as a 200-foot behemoth crashed through the ice, sandwiching him between the black ship and the shore. Old Uncle Joe rubbed a gloved hand over his stubble. There were not any icebreakers due in on Tuesday night.

  Was this Tuesday night?

  Come to think of it, Joe wasn’t sure if it was even a weeknight.

  Joe reached for the moonshine.

  A metal hatch slammed open at the top of the ship. Dark figures spilled out into the Alaskan night, armed to the teeth. Several of them looked over at Joe as they slid down the side of their ship. They looked at him with green eyes. Joe took a swig of moonshine, gulping it down and giving the alien visitors a wave.

  They didn’t return his greeting, but instead dashed up the shore.

  Suddenly, the fishing pole was nearly torn from between his knees.

  A bite!

  Joe reached for the pole with both hands, forgetting that he was holding the Mason jar. As he grasped the fishing rod, his jar of moonshine shattered on the ice.

  “Awww fuck,” Joe complained.

  Then he reached for one of the singles of Jack Daniels that he kept in his parka pocket for such emergency situations.

  * * *

  Tampa, Florida

  “That’s it! That’s them!”

  Will smiled as he watched the flat-screen monitor. The Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle was orbiting over Barrow, Alaska. The sensor suite onboard the drone was being manipulated by a technician sitting in a trailer next to the pilot in Nevada. The cameras zoomed in on the long black ship that had just broken through the ice and docked alongside the coast. The fisherman who had been pinned right between the ship and the shore appeared on the screen to be completely unfazed. Was he a spotter or just a drunk?

  “Where is Deckard?” Gary asked.

  “Ten minutes out,” Craig answered.

  On the screen, little figures ran around like ants toward a warehouse on the far eastern side of Barrow, on the outskirts of the town.

  “Who owns that damn warehouse?” Will asked.

  “Huh,” Craig said as he looked as his computer screen. “It seems that we do. It is an old warehouse left over from World War Two. Right now it is being leased to a company called Arctic Consulting Group. I’ll pull up their information.”

  “It will turn out to be a front group. They’ve obviously pre-staged a lot of logistical support for this operation. They have been running advanced force operations right under our noses in anticipation for this. Burying caches, buying off officials, setting booby traps, leaving behind fuel depots, and God knows what else.”

  “What kind of military assets does Uncle Sam have up there in Alaska?” Gary asked. “Even if they cannot arrive in time for the hit, they can at least back up Deckard’s men, contain the objective area, and help provide resources for contingency planning.”

  “I made some calls,” Will replied. “And the answer is not much. The U.S. military has been focused on the desert for fifteen years, and we’ve let our already minimal Arctic warfare capabilities atrophy. 4/25 has been shrunk down to a battalion-sized unit, so we basically have no large, rapidly deploying unit that can fight in the Arctic, which means all we have to rely on is 1st SBCT, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team.”

  “Well that’s something,” Gary said. “Can we spin them up?”

  “Not really. Not in these conditions. They are a Stryker brigade,” Will said, referring to the Army's eight-wheeled Stryker armored vehicles that carried infantrymen in the back. “Strykers hardly work in negative ten-degree temperatures, and don’t work at all in
the negative forty-degree temperatures we’re seeing in the Arctic between November and March. And that is just a mild winter for northern Alaska. Besides that, they have the oldest Strykers in the Army. Some of them are the original test vehicles from the 1990s. They break down all the time, and getting the replacement parts up to Alaska takes a long time because of the great distances involved. That, and even when they are running, they suck at driving in the snow.”

  “Doesn't a brigade combat team have attack helicopters attached to it as well?”

  “Yeah, but same deal. The AH-64E Apache helicopters they have at Fort Wainwright can't fly in negative ten-degree conditions because their electronics freeze.”

  “This is unreal. We have an Arctic warfare unit that can't fight in the Arctic?” Gary asked no one in particular. “What about troops? Can we truck them in? Fly them in?”

  “Would take too long, again because of distance,” Will lamented. “Besides, about only ten percent of the troops assigned to the brigade combat team have attended the Northern Warfare Training Center in Fort Greely, and even then, they really only get survival and mountaineering training. They don’t get shit when it comes to actually fighting in the Arctic. If you want to talk to someone who actually knows how to fight up above the Arctic Circle, talk to the Canadians or the Russians or the Norwegians, because we’ve got our balls cut off when it comes to operating in this region.”

  “I’m pushing this imagery to Deckard now,” Gary said with a sigh. “He should get there just in time to crash the party.”

  Will took a deep breath.

  He sure hoped so, because right now, none of them had a very impressive track record.

  * * *