by Greig Beck
He lifted his jacket front and pulled a twelve-inch bowie knife from a worn leather scabbard attached to his belt. He placed it on the bar, his hand close to it, then turned red, drunk-angry eyes on Franks and leaned in close.
Franks smiled and said calmly, ‘That’s it? That’s all you got? You more used to picking fights down at the local senior citizens’ home?’ She shook her head, still smiling. ‘Listen up, asshole. If I turn around and that blade’s still on the bar, I’m going to take it and castrate you, stick your balls down your boyfriend’s throat and make him swallow them. I’m not here to make friends tonight… fucker.’
The silence stretched for many seconds, then Greasy Cap made a movement. Whether he was going for the knife or to retreat didn’t matter. Franks turned, grabbed the knife, spun expertly and buried the blade an inch into the wooden bar top, between two of Greasy Cap’s fingers.
She leaned back on the bar again, still smiling. ‘Now, fuck off and play some pool or something.’
Greasy Cap pulled his hand away and looked at it; there was a small split in the skin between his fingers. The seconds stretched as the booze-oiled gears worked in his head. He shot his hand out, grabbed the knife and wrenched it from the bar top. ‘Dyke,’ he said, and walked off towards the pool table. His friend, following, looked back briefly to flip Franks the bird.
Casey Franks picked up the beer and downed it in a long gulp, then carefully carried the two steaming coffees back to the booth. Hammerson still had his eyes on the tracker, but looked up briefly to scowl at her.
‘Making friends there, Franks?’
‘Just makin’ some space, boss.’
Hammerson grunted. ‘We came in here to keep a low profile, not to wipe the floor with the locals. Got that, soldier?’
‘Got it, boss.’
She lifted her cup and sipped the dark brew, then turned briefly to see the barmaid smile and nod to her. She winked in return.
‘He’s reached the outskirts of Asheville — he’s coming right to us,’ Hammerson said, glancing at her as he spoke.
It was the first time in her life Franks had seen the Hammer look uncertain. It didn’t make her feel good.
TWENTY-THREE
Alex let the SUV idle for a moment in the dark street, before switching off the engine and staring blankly through the windscreen. Adira watched him for a few seconds, then scanned the street, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Alex had mentioned a number of times that he felt they were being watched. He was probably right. Now that she knew there were professional Mossad operatives hunting them, her nerves were wire tight. She examined the businesses lining the street but saw nothing of interest.
‘What are we looking for?’ she asked.
Alex blinked a few times before responding. ‘Don’t know yet.’
He pushed open the door, climbed out of the SUV and looked around for a few seconds, then stared in one direction. Adira was just about to join him when he said harshly, ‘Wait here.’
She sat back, frowning, and watched him head directly towards a commercial building with double glass doors. Asheville Animal Hospital the signage announced. He placed his hand on the glass and turned his head slightly. Adira expected him to push the door open, but he seemed to be listening for something. After a moment, he stood back and disappeared around the corner of the building.
Adira opened the car door again and climbed out. A faint glow was just touching the horizon, and she hoped whatever Alex was doing was over with quickly. She looked around slowly. The trained agent part of her hated being out in the open, and she walked quickly across the road to stand in the dark doorway of an apartment block. The entrance hallway stretched away into solid darkness. She walked a few paces into its interior, satisfying herself it was empty. No need to take chances, she thought.
She breathed calmly, willing her heartbeat to slow, all her senses focused on the street.
* * *
Around the side of the animal surgery, Alex found a fire exit, as he’d hoped. He hefted the external padlock in his hand, feeling its weight, then turned it over to examine its base — and grunted in acknowledgment of the toughened steel shackle and two-and-a-half-inch steel casing. A good one, he thought, and smiled. Though the high-grade padlock was near unbreakable without heavy boltcutters, the sliding bolt mechanisms they were attached to were nearly always a lower-grade alloy and much weaker.
Alex gripped the brass case and twisted, turning the steel. It squealed in resistance for a few seconds, but soon broke free from the metal eyelets it was threaded through. He let it drop silently and opened the door, slipped inside and closed it behind him.
Fear, pain, disease and death — the smell of the animals’ distress was overpowering. Whimpers and mewling turned to yapping and deeper barks as frightened and lonely animals vied for his attention. He stood in the dark room, still not sure what he was looking for. All he had was a name: Kathleen Hunter. But something had drawn him to this place; he knew that somehow he’d find the answers he sought.
He walked quickly through the maelstrom of animal noise and into a room that seemed to be a surgery and office combined. Against one wall stood a large refrigeration unit, with shelves nearby holding drugs, flea treatments and all manner of grooming products. In the corner was a double-steel filing cabinet — probably the place to start. He went to the cabinet and tugged; locked as expected. He braced himself and pulled. The handle bent outwards, threatening to tear free, which would leave him with a flat metal sheet and nothing to grip. He inserted his fingers into the small gap showing at the top. The lock held for a few more seconds, then there was a pop as the metal tongue gave away and the drawer slid out.
The files were organised by pet name. He went through them quickly, until he came to one that stood out for some reason. Jess. He pulled it out; Jess was a dog, a German shepherd, owner K. Hunter. The sheet gave him the address he wanted, and he stuffed it into his pocket and slid the file back into place. He closed the cabinet and tried to bend the door and handle back into some sort of normal shape.
He made his way back through the dark surgery, planning to leave, then paused. There was something else here. His eyes were drawn to the steel refrigeration unit. He moved to it in the dark and pulled open the heavy door. A blast of cold air washed over him and an unsettling odour. On one of the broad trays lay the large body of a dog. He slid it out and looked down at it.
Jess. The dog from his memories.
He rested his hand on the dog’s flank, noting the abraded fur and feeling the broken bones beneath the skin. ‘So much pain, and you died fighting, didn’t you?’ He felt an intense sadness that quickly turned to anger. He knew what the brutal death of the loyal animal probably meant.
‘Is she dead too?’
He frowned and leaned forward — the smell coming off the dog was revolting. Not the usual scent of unwashed dog but something rank and unfamiliar. He couldn’t place it. He closed his eyes and concentrated; tried to visualise the dog, pushing at his memories. A knot of pain flared from the centre of his skull all the way down his neck. He saw Kathleen and Jess the sun-warmed porch of a small house… a meadow beyond leading to a steep hill. Then he was up on the hill, looking down at them. The scene changed to winter, to night-time… and then the creature came, a grotesquery, hiding in the darkness, moving silently through the shadows towards the house.
Alex ground his teeth as the dog’s frustration and fury became his own — he felt danger, fear, the desire to attack and kill. The images came faster, along with urgency and panic. The monster, large but roughly human shaped, came at the woman out of the darkness. He heard her scream and a wave of anguish washed over him.
Alex blinked as the images faded away. The feelings remained, however: a residue of hatred for the thing, whatever it was, and a desire to kill it. He lifted his hands to his face and inhaled the bestial odour that emanated from the dog’s fur, wanting to remember it.
As he pushed the heavy, metal door shut,
he heard a sound from behind him and the lights came on.
‘I don’t know who you are, son,’ said an old man’s voice, ‘but don’t move or there’ll be more trouble than you want to be a part of.’
Alex saw the outline of a figure and the black barrel of a gun in the distorted reflection of the metal door in front of him. He responded to the threat without thinking, spinning quickly, one hand ripping the gun from his assailant’s hands, the other grasping his throat. The man’s feet lifted from the floor and he gagged at the pressure at his neck.
Kill him, the voice inside Alex’s head ordered.
Alex grimaced; the man was old and no threat. He lowered him to the ground, and the man folded into a heap, his hands over his face. Alex pulled him upright and shook him.
‘Who are you?’
‘Ahh, Grinberg,’ the man stammered. ‘The vet. This is my surgery. There’s no money here. Please, let me —’
‘What happened?’Alex cut in, motioning towards the freezer.
‘What?’
‘To the dog? What happened?’
‘You mean old Jess?’ The old man kept his eyes on the ground. ‘Don’t know… neither do the police. Never seen anything like it — must have been a bear, or a pack of wolves, I reckon. Nothing else could have done that to a full-grown shepherd.’
‘And the women?’ Alex asked.
‘Kathleen?’ The veterinarian started to raise his head.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Alex ordered.
The old man froze, his eyes still gazing at the floor. He swallowed then said quietly, ‘No one knows. She’s just… gone. Same as all the others.’
* * *
From her hiding place, Adira saw the man enter the street. He was broad, fit and moved too deftly for any normal man of that size. She cursed under her breath. Alex was right — they were being watched… and followed. If the man was Mossad Kidon, he probably wasn’t alone. She drew the large Jericho pistol and held it at her side as she pressed herself back into the dark alcove, just the edge of one eye giving her a view of the street.
She waited, her nerves tightening even more. The figure looked briefly at the SUV, then stood there in the centre of the dark street, making himself a large target. What is he doing? Her breath caught. Is he drawing my attention? She whipped around to the impenetrable darkness of the corridor, her arm up, the large gun aimed down the dark passage. Nothing. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to stay calm, and turned back to the lone figure. Come on, what are you waiting for?
The man removed his cap and ran a hand through his cropped, iron-grey hair. He lifted his head and now Adira could see his face clearly. Jack Hammerson. Shitza! Why was he here in person?
He rolled the cap and tucked it into a pocket, then put his hands on his hips. ‘Come out,’ he called, and lifted his chin and waited.
Adira glanced across the road to the animal hospital. Hammerson wasn’t looking that way so obviously he didn’t know Alex was in there. She leaned out slightly, scanning the street from different angles. Would the HAWC leader have come alone? She pulled back, her eyes returning to the blocky figure. Of course he had come alone. He’d had to. It was he who had consigned Alex Hunter into Israel’s care and then told his superiors the man’s body had been incinerated. Colonel Jack Hammerson wouldn’t be able to explain how his man had risen from the dead. He’d lied to the US military, betrayed them, to save Alex Hunter, his creation. Now he was here to clean up his mess… and she was part of that mess. Was this a retrieval or a termination? She’d have to wait and see.
Hammerson turned to look at the SUV again. They had probably been tracking it, maybe since they’d first set off in it. Am I that obvious and clumsy now? She ground her teeth in disgust at her own incompetence.
‘Don’t waste my time,’ Hammerson called again, louder this time. ‘Come out now.’
Adira channelled her anger at herself towards the HAWC leader. She was confident she could take him, and she would enjoy the fight. Her relationship with Jack Hammerson, her former superior officer, had turned toxic when he found out she was continuing to work for Mossad and thereby was breaching US security. In turn, he had stopped her accompanying Alex on his mission to Paraguay… the mission during which he had become infected with the horrifying microorganism that had almost killed him. To compound her fury, Hammerson had then refused her offer of using Israeli resources to get Alex out of South America quickly. Alex had been as good as dead by the time Jack Hammerson had crawled back to her to ask for her country’s help. She’d agreed, but not for Hammerson, or even for Israel.
And now he was here to threaten her again. She would never let Jack Hammerson get to Alex; never let him expose her desperate inventions to keep Alex by her side. If he succeeded, everything she had done, and sacrificed, would be for nothing.
Adira had trained her mind to be clinical and dispassionate, to remain free of emotion. But as she stared at Hammerson, she felt a deep contempt. She lifted the gun and aimed between his eyes — an easy shot over the distance. But her finger did not tighten on the trigger.
She groaned inwardly at her indecision. She had a thousand reasons to kill Hammerson, but if she did, the amount of force that would rally against her would be insurmountable. And how would Alex react?
She maintained her aim between the HAWC commander’s eyes for another second, then lowered her sights to his thigh. She’d wound him. After all, she only needed to slow him down for now. Perhaps he and her Mossad pursuers would trip over each other. Adira tensed, and slowed her breathing for the shot. Behind her, she sensed a slight change in the air density, as if a door or window had been opened somewhere along the darkened hallway.
Stupid, she thought. She kept the gun pointed at Hammerson, but moved up onto her toes and let her other hand drop to her side.
‘Don’t move.’ The voice from behind her was female, but deep.
Adira calmed herself and allowed her focus to turn inwards. In her mind she saw her next move, the countermove of her opponent, and then again her own following action. She coiled the muscles from her shoulders to her thighs and waited for the split-second moment she knew would come. She breathed evenly, and slowly raised her gun to point it straight up, opened her fingers and let it drop.
‘Easy now.’
The voice was closer and there was a hint of satisfaction in the words. The cold steel muzzle of a gun pressed into the nape of her neck. It was what she was waiting for. Adira exploded, swinging her other hand, holding a deadly black spike, back towards the voice with blistering speed. The woman managed to block the blow but grunted in surprise. In the deep darkness of the corridor, Adira could make out a stocky form, shorter than herself, but with powerful muscles through the shoulders and neck.
The woman blocked her next strike, but Adira used the tip of her elbow to catch the woman hard on the cheek. The head on the thick neck barely moved. For the next few seconds, furious blows were traded, until both women managed to grip each other and for a few short seconds they stared into each other’s faces. Adira looked into the eyes and saw no fear, only… amusement. The sturdy woman smiled, one side of her face pulling up to match the sneer already made by the terrible slash of a scar on the other cheek.
Adira remained detached, impassive and calculating, her mind still working through the moves and countermoves she anticipated. Jack Hammerson was here, so her opponent would be a HAWC. Adira knew all the HAWC moves… and many more of her own.
Whatever spell had frozen the two warriors was broken and the frantic combat began again. Spatters of saliva and blood stained the walls as savage blows were met, absorbed or parried. But in the silent doorway no grunts of pain, anger or frustration came from the two professional combat women.
The woman dealt Adira a flat-hand strike under the chin. Making her head snap up, but she brought it down just as quickly without a sound. Throughout the brutal attack, the small HAWC maintained her smile. The tough woman had the strength of a man, but she was overc
onfident and underestimated her foe and the battle scenario. Tight-area combat was what Mossad’s elite fighters specifically trained for. If you were sent into a Hamas spider hole or tunnel system, you needed to be able to fight within the space of a coffin and win.
Adira brought her knee up, followed a split second after by a head-butt. The knee strike was blocked, but the head-butt caught the smaller woman flush on the bridge of her nose. Adira knew the HAWC’s eyes would water for only a second, but it was all she needed. She drew another blade from her sleeve and jammed it into the meat of the woman’s shoulder, through the bunching trapezium muscle and just over the clavicle bridge. She left the spike embedded — a calculated strike-and-plant tactic designed to impede movement in the arm and shoulder. The HAWC’s gun fell from her near useless hand, but she didn’t make a sound, just continued to battle one-armed.
Adira grabbed the arm and used the HAWC’s own body weight to slam her forward into the brick wall, face first, then again with even greater force. She wrapped her arm around the woman’s throat, holding her in a neck lock, and hissed into her ear, ‘You fight well, little HAWC. I won’t kill you today because I need you upright. Next time, not so lucky.’
Adira pulled the woman away from the wall and held her as cover in front of the doorway. She bent, dragging the HAWC with her, to retrieve her gun. The woman took the opportunity to reach for her own weapon, and Adira stamped hard on her hand, making the gun go off in the hallway. She slammed the HAWC into the wall again and tightened the grip on her throat.
When she turned back to the street, it was as she had expected. Colonel Jack Hammerson stood just ten feet from the doorway, his gun drawn and pointed at her left eye.
‘Let her go, Adira. We’re only here for Alex — we just want to speak to him.’
Adira stayed hunched behind the smaller woman. She knew how skilled the HAWCs were; if she exposed even an inch of her flesh as a target, Hammerson would hit it.
‘He does not want to speak to you,’ she said. ‘Any of you. He does not even know you anymore.’