The Void

by Greig Beck

  “Party time,” she whispered as a ladder unfurled beside her.

  Casey went up the rungs quickly, and one of the men reached down to grip one of her upper arms and pulled her over the side.

  The man held on tight and frowned. Perhaps expecting to feel soft flesh, but instead finding rock-hard muscle. The jug-eared one got behind her and grabbed at her long hair planning to pull her head back. He would have exposed her throat and had her immediately in a position of submission.

  But the long hair came off in his hand, and he stood staring at it for a few confused seconds as if he’d just caught a strange and disgusting species of animal.

  Casey started to laugh at their expressions, and imagined the disappointment and surprise at instead of having some sort of lost bimbo woman, the person that stood before them had a white flat top, scarred face and a neck that was corded with veins and swirling with tattoos.

  “Ack.” Jug-ears threw the wig to the deck. “This is no woman.” He drew a hunting knife.

  The other terrorist, still holding her upper arm, went to spin her around to face him, and Casey went with it, using the momentum to come in fast. She brought the point of her elbow back hard into his eye socket. There was a wet sensation on her skin, and also the satisfying crunch of orbital bone.

  Before she let him go, she jerked his arm straight, and then brought the same elbow point down on the back of his elbow, crunching the joint.

  “Ouch.” She grinned. “You like that?”

  He howled and backed up, one arm hanging useless and the other hand over his eye. Before he was out of range, Casey shot out a roundhouse kick, knocking him over the side to the water.

  She turned toward Jug-ears, her face pulled into a smirk. He lunged with the blade, and it shot forward toward her stomach. Casey used a flat strike to deflect the thrust, and then grabbed his wrist and twisted it, hard and fast. She held him, his arm at an odd angle, so she could simply reach down to yank the knife from his hand.

  “Should have gone fishing, asshole.”

  She wanted to take the blade and bury it into one of his jug ears, but her primary orders were to secure the wheelhouse – and she still had questions for them.

  “It’s your lucky day.”

  She curled one hand into a fist, and smashed it down on the bridge of his nose. The armor plated HAWC glove was like a house-brick and her arm a pile driver. Jug-ears was smashed to the deck and Casey crouched beside him. She put a hand over his mouth, raised the man’s knife and then slammed it down on his hand, spearing it to the wooden deck.

  She ignored the muffled scream, and in Arabic, she whispered through a terrifying smile.

  “Listen and live; are there any others like you in the wheelhouse?” She took her hand away from his mouth.

  The man looked up, blood running thickly down his chin from his shattered nose. He gritted bloody teeth and began to curse in Arabic.

  “I see.”

  Casey grabbed his skewed nose and twisted, crunching the already broken cartilage. He began to howl and she clamped her other hand over his mouth.

  “Shush, shush, there.” She leaned closer. “Now, you want to try that again?”

  She began to twist once more, but he shook his head.

  “No one there,” he hissed.

  “Good boy.” She stood, looking down. “Hey, you forgot to show me your woman finder.” She chuckled for a second or two, before smashing her armor-plated fist down like a sledgehammer onto the back of his skull.

  The base of his head dented inwards, and the man started to convulse.

  “Oops.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”

  She shoved the body over the side, and then sprinted up the steps to the upper-deck wheelhouse, saw it was empty, and pressed the stud at her ear.

  “Wheelhouse is ours.”

  * * *

  After hearing Casey tell him the boat wasn’t going anywhere, stage one was now complete, and Alex placed a hand against the woodwork. He could sense the men inside – six of them – one would be a technician, the other five would be the heavy hitters, men prepared to brutally kill or die in the name of what they believed.

  He inhaled slowly through his nose, smelling the faint trace of ozone in the air – he didn’t need a Geiger counter to tell him there was high-grade enriched plutonium and an initiator being assembled behind the door.

  Alex knew the components were safe to transport when kept separated. But once they were put together as a single device, the risk of detonation went up exponentially. You only constructed a tactical device when detonation was imminent. That told him the terrorist cell believed they were geographically in place and just about ready.

  The other thing he knew was that the amount of leakage he could sense meant the men inside were as good as dead, and they probably couldn’t care less, as the Manhattan would be vaporized anyway. In a way, they would be the lucky ones, as a dirty bomb wasn’t designed to contain the initial uranium collision that triggered the nuclear explosion. Instead it was meant to break apart immediately and disperse its toxic particles.

  The impact blast would be a lower intensity, but the high lethality factor came from the rapidly outward-spreading cloud of deadly radioactive material. Once it touched the skin, or was embedded in the respiratory system, then depending on dose, it either killed quickly or slowly and agonizingly over a few weeks. It would even corrupt waterways and the ground soil for generations.

  Alex heard the excitement and good humor in their voices. Perhaps at the thought of hundreds of thousands dead, untold billions in clean-up costs, and the only casualties for the terrorists would be this one boatload of fanatics. It would be a massive strategic and propaganda win.

  He counted down, feeling his heart rate rise as everything around him seemed to slow. He visualized what he needed to do. Bottom line, it all boiled down to one thing – keep them away from the detonation switch.

  He sucked in a breath, gripped his blades, and charged the door, exploding it open. There was that split second of frozen shock, like a flashbulb going off but it broke quickly.

  The men were professionals, and weren’t stunned to inaction by the sudden appearance of the near naked intruder. Instead, they all leaped into action. Some dove for cover, most reached for weapons. For Alex, the scenario confirmed what he had sensed – six men, five big and hard-looking, and one down kneeling beside a device that looked like a huge misshapen gas cylinder.

  They came fast, two trusting their bare hands and the others waiting their turn with guns or perhaps hesitant to fire near the device. One screamed for Khaled, obviously the technician, to continue his work. The smaller man turned back to his bomb, his hands working furiously as he tried to shut everything else out.

  The first man swung a big, looping right cross, and Alex allowed the arm to pass over his shoulder so he could swing back with his fist to embed the short Ka-Bar into his temple with a wet crunch. He let the fast-moving body continue past him to crumple against the wall.

  Alex had already decided there would be no prisoners, no surrender, there would only be death – the ghosts of the senator and his wife demanded it. Those who made fear will know real fear this day, he thought as he increased his speed.

  Like an engine moving to higher revolutions, Alex’s mind and body worked many times faster than his opponent’s. A hand came down on one shoulder, trying to turn him around, he shrugged it off, ducked under a knife and then came back up with an uppercut to his attacker’s jaw, not pulling his punch, driving the man’s mandible bone back and up into his skull. The dead body flew up to strike the low ceiling.

  Then the gunfire began. Bullets flew, striking metal and wood, ricocheting or punching holes through the walls, floor, and ceiling. The overhead light exploded, and only beams of sunlight remained from the porthole-sized windows. The smell of cordite and dust, woodchip and gunsmoke filled the crowded room with a blue haze.

  For Alex, the darkness moved the odds even more in his favor, and he d
ove, rolled, and came up in front of one of the shooters to immediately bury his longer blade into the man’s forehead.

  Bullets flew indiscriminately and there came a sting of pain across his cheekbone, and then the meat of his shoulder felt like a horse had just kicked it. He twisted away, scooping up the fallen terrorist’s body with his blade still extruding from the face, and flung it back to where tiny gouts of flame indicated the shots were coming from.

  There was a grunt and the shooter was knocked down. Alex dove at him, just as he was pushing his comrade’s dead body from himself. Alex’s weapons were gone, but like most in the Special Forces, his body was a weapon, and he could use what he had – in this instance, the top of his head.

  Alex used his momentum to ram his forehead into the front of the man’s face, flattening it between him and the wall. The terrorist’s arms dropped, and Alex snatched a long and heavy hunting knife from the man’s belt.

  The remaining terrorist had given up on a direct attack on Alex and instead lurched for the bomb. The device initiators were simple on homemade tactical weapons – you just needed to fire a pellet into a larger ball of high-grade fissionable material, like plutonium. The high-speed collision generated a reaction that would continue until detonation. The effect was inevitable and devastating. A homemade high-velocity mechanism – similar to a gun – would do it. It only needed one thing – a trigger.

  Alex saw the red, thumb-sized button on top, and the huge man closing in on it while the technician kneeled back, his work done, and his eyes wide.

  “Stop!”

  The force of Alex’s voice made the man pause. His eyes locked with Alex’s; his hand outstretched and only feet from the trigger.

  Alex, just a yard away, pointed with his blade, and spoke slowly and clearly. “First I’ll take the hand.” He dropped his arm, keeping the knife down at his side but blade side pointed up.

  The man stared for another moment before his lips begin to curl up at the corners.

  “Allah Akhbar!” he screamed and then lunged at the button.

  Alex swept the blade upwards faster than the eye could follow. The hand and forearm separated just below the elbow, with the hand spinning in the air like a wet glove. Blood spurted, covering the cowering technician who still kneeled before the bomb.

  The terrorist’s eyes went wide as he looked at the spurting stump for a moment, before he gripped it and stared to yell. Insanely, his eyes went back to the trigger.

  “And then I’ll take the rest.” The next sweep of Alex’s blade and the man’s yell was also cut off as his head fell back on the remaining skin flap of his near-severed neck.

  Alex dropped the now sticky blade to the side. The room was now silent save for the occasional drip of blood, the settling of last breaths in collapsing bodies, and the groan of splintered decking wood.

  Alex looked down at the technician who had his hands up, eyes round as silver dollars.

  Kill him too.

  Alex frowned. “No.”

  “Say again, boss?” Casey’s query came back immediately into his ear comm.

  “Where are you?”

  “Top deck, doing some housekeeping,” she said casually.

  “Good; device secured, coming up in a second or two.” Alex looked back down at the technician.

  “I surrender,” the man said softly.

  Kill him – remember the senator.

  Alex recognized who it was, or what it was. It was from his Id, the one he called The Other, the creature that lurked there and fed on violence. He had carried it ever since his cure – the Arcadian treatment, the experimental formulae administered to him had given him back his mind and body following a catastrophic battlefield injury. But it had released something from his deep subconscious. Something near primordial in its lust for brutality and blood.

  He stared down at the small man as the thing in his mind exerted pressure on his will. He’d mostly learned how to cage and control The Other. But violence freed it and once escaped, all it wanted was blood and more blood.

  The technician lowered his hands slowly, and let them rest on the edge of the device.

  Alex touched the communication pellet at his ear again. “Franks, call in immediate evac.”

  He looked back at the man, who smiled up nervously. His eyes shifted, and Alex could see the bloom of heat on his cheeks as his blood pressure rose.

  The technician licked his lips. “I will tell you everything.”

  “I know you will,” Alex said.

  The man’s eyes dilated. His hands were mere inches from the trigger. He licked his lips again.

  “Please.” The man shook his head, but his hands seemed to move a fraction closer to the trigger.

  Or did they move? Alex couldn’t tell if they really moved, or he only wished they had.

  You see? Take your eyes off him, and he’ll detonate it.

  Alex crushed his eyes shut, and reopened them, trying to blink away the devil inside.

  He’s laughing at you, just like he was laughing when they tortured her, the senator’s wife, and then butchered him.

  Did the technician’s hand edge closer again?

  Of course it did, the voice whispered urgently. They trussed the senator and his wife up, and then made him watch her bleed out. Oh, how they laughed as he begged for her life.

  Alex’s hand bunched into a fist.

  * * *

  Two minutes later Alex bounded up to the control deck. Franks turned. “Captain on the bridge.” She grinned.

  “What have we got?” Alex asked as he wiped bloody hands on a towel he had picked up.

  “Two choppers inbound; one HAWC and one Coast Guard. The CG guys also have a containment team and will take control of the vessel once the bomb is removed. And then we both get to spend hours in decontamination and debrief.”

  He nodded. “Perks of management.”

  “I’m in management?” Casey’s grin dropped as she saw the ripped skin on Alex’s face and red-ragged hole in his shoulder.

  “Trouble?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t deal with.” He shrugged. “No survivors.”

  She grunted. “They were dead the moment we boarded.”

  Alex threw the towel into the corner and stared out at the horizon. “No, they were dead the moment they boarded.”

  * * *

  Captain Geoff Jackson and his containment team were dropped onto the Manhattan’s deck. He had been told to expect two waiting Special Forces operatives. One was a tall male, in bathing trunks, looking like he was carved from stone and with eyes that went through him like lasers. The other a stocky woman, he guessed, with a scarred face and more muscles than he had.

  He saluted. “All threats neutralized?”

  “Confirmed; the Manhattan is yours.” The tall man returned the salute, and then he and the woman turned to jog toward a black – and insignia-free – waiting helo.

  Another larger, heavy duty H-53 US Marine Sea Stallion chopper hovered close by, waiting to lift off the disarmed nuclear package when Jackson’s team had secured it.

  Jackson stood with hands on hips as the Special Forces chopper left. The guy never introduced himself, but he’d heard the stories. He heard that the operatives sent in were a group called the HAWCs and when they were called in, the only thing left to do was cart out the bodies.

  But there was one HAWC who was near legendary, and it was the eyes that gave the guy away. They were said to be like twin windows to hell. And after standing before the man, he’d looked into them, and known it was true.

  So that was him, the Arcadian. He’d heard about him, but like most didn’t even think he was real, instead some sort of made-up story about a soldier that couldn’t be killed to bolster support in the ranks.

  The guy was a one-man weapon of mass destruction. Before joining the Coast Guard, Jackson had faced enemy fire over Afghanistan, and dropped into some real wild shit in his military days. But something behind Hunter’s eyes unsettled him. Maybe al
l the weird stories were true, he exhaled. Just glad he’s on our side. He turned to his team and circled a finger in the air.

  Jackson followed his team as they lugged a huge lead-lined box down to the lower deck where Hunter said he had left the device. Their own disposal technician went through the galley doors first.

  “Jesus Christ.” The man recoiled back out the door, now with an arm up over his lower face.

  “What?” Jackson unclipped his sidearm and pushed past him. He froze in the doorway as waves of revulsion swept over him. The smell was the first thing – wood chips, cordite, blood and other body fluids. Then the visuals kicked in. Dead and broken bodies were everywhere – five, six, seven, he had no idea how many corpses at this point. Some were missing limbs, another lay back with eyes open and a knife protruding from his forehead, and in one case, a skull near squashed flat.

  “What the fuck did this?” his technician whispered. He looked at Jackson, his eyes now haunted. “Did those two HAWCs do this?”

  Jackson shook his head slowly. “Nope, I’m betting just one of them. These assholes just pissed off the wrong guy.” Jackson tried to only breathe through his mouth. “Forget about it. We need to secure the device and get the fuck out of here. The mess is someone else’s problem.” He turned. “Do your job, people.”

  The technicians carefully entered the room followed by the box carriers.

  “Little help here, boss.” The technician pointed.

  Jackson swallowed down some bile, and crossed to the device. There was a body slumped over it, its hands lying on either side of the trigger, but with the top of its head caved in to nose level. It looked like someone had pounded down on it with a sledgehammer.

  Jackson lifted a leg to kick the dead body back off the device. He thumbed toward the bomb. “Now hurry the fuck up.”