by Jack Murphy
Firing wildly from side to side, Deckard ran forward with bloodshot eyes.
The Serbs back-stepped as a fresh salvo of .45 caliber hollow points slammed into their front line. The mercenaries saw that only one of them was left and were ready to overwhelm him. As they cut loose with a dozen automatic weapons, Deckard saw the open door and dived through it.
Bullets zinged through the operations center in three hundred and sixty degrees.
Rolling behind a rack filled with electronic equipment, Deckard stole a glance backwards. A half-dozen Serbs were mowed down by not-so-friendly fire from the OPCEN staff. Whoever they were, they were spooked, causing them to engage anything that appeared through the door.
Squinting, Deckard saw him from across the operations center.
Hieronymus was pressed up against the wall, his hands clenched around the edge of the table with white knuckles. His jaw hung slack, eyes glazed over as a torrent of gunfire slammed into the console that Deckard lay next to.
Straight-arming his 1911, Deckard saw the front sight post align perfectly with the rear sight, blocking out his target's nose. The old man stared into him with pure hatred. Deckard's finger tightened around the trigger.
The hard rubber sole of a combat boot stomped the side of Deckard's head, sending his pistol spinning across the floor. Before he could react, a second blow knocked the wind out of him, the booted foot coming down on his unprotected ribcage where the body armor didn't cover.
“Everyone out,” a seemingly disembodied voice said. “Disappear!”
Coughing hard enough to gag himself, he heard a dozen or so footsteps as technicians in black uniforms fought each other to get through the door first. Hieronymus stood frozen in place for the briefest moment before rushing to follow them out.
Rolling to his other side, Deckard attempted to sit up, when hands grabbed his collar and pant leg in an iron grip. The next thing the former soldier knew he was airborne, sailing across the command center until a wall broke his fall.
Collapsing to the hard steel plated floor, Deckard broke out in another fit of hacking his guts up as pain racked his entire body. He was dizzy, too disoriented to gain his bearings.
“I'm going to take my time with you, asshole.”
It was the voice that had spoken to him over the PA system.
His body stiffened, pain shooting through every nerve ending. Left unable to move, he could only hear a detached howl of agony that he was vaguely aware of escaping from his own throat. Just when he thought it would be over, the pain continued, stretching on for seconds that turned into forever.
Finally, the pain subsided and he was able to breathe.
“Heard about you from those pricks at Bragg,” the voice snorted. “Said you were some kind of badass. Don't look so badass to me.”
The pain exploded inside him a second time, every muscle in his body pulled taunt. Now it was only gurgling that sounded from his lips. Seconds later, it was over and he was able to take another deep breath. His nerve endings were frayed and still firing wildly.
With his vision clearing for just a moment, Deckard looked up at the hulking figure. A boxy pistol-like device was in his hand with two wires running out of the front of it.
“I can do this all fucking night,” the man said with a sadistic laugh. “Holy shit, I am gonna fuck your world up.”
Deckard rolled over, grinding his rib cage hard against the floor. The twin metal barbs broke off inside him, separating from the Taser prongs that had been embedded in his skin.
Chad squeezed the trigger on the Taser, a look of surprise washing over his face as Deckard pushed himself up on all fours, unaffected with the leads broken off under his skin and detached from the wires that led to the control unit.
“Piece of shit,” the steroid-head snarled.
Chad detached the cartridge that had fired the prongs and discarded it. Moving forward, he squeezed the trigger again and the Taser clicked repeatedly as a charge ran across the leads sticking out from the front of the unit. Reaching down, he was prepared to drive stun Deckard back into submission.
Deckard's hand was a blur as he went on the offensive.
Chad recoiled, stumbling backwards into a console and dropping the Taser. The blade's edge was so sharp that at first he didn't feel any pain but saw his own blood leaking across the floor. Deckard clutched his side as he struggled to his feet, a bloody Ka-Bar fighting knife in his other hand.
The larger man flicked his hand back and forth before letting it hang limply on his wrist, dripping blood everywhere. Deckard was bigger and stronger than most, as well as being in peak physical condition before being tossed, stomped on, tased a few times, and completely exhausted from days without sleep. Chad was easily twice his size. Thick muscle was pulled across every inch of his body, veins in his neck and at his temples pulsing as his anger grew.
“Doesn't change shit,” the ex-Delta operator laughed. “Dickhead.”
Chad charged him, Deckard attempting to sidestep out of the way a moment too late. Built like a professional wrestler, he lifted Deckard clean off his feet, slamming him into the wall. Seeing stars, Deckard was sure he felt something explode inside his abdomen.
A hand the size of a catcher's mitt wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze. Black walls were closing in as Deckard stuck the fighting knife under Chad's elbow and sliced upwards towards his wrist with a single violent slash. Flesh parted under the blade's edge, sending the power lifter staggering backwards.
Enraged, Chad's eyes burnt like hot coals. Rushing forward he hit Deckard broadside as he struggled to breathe. Grasping his wrist, Chad twisted and curled his hand around until the knife fell from Deckard's grip.
Still holding onto his wrist, he flung Deckard back across the room and into someone's desk. Shaking his head, Deckard tried to clear his vision once again but to no avail. A clenched fist slammed into his guts, followed up by a brutal uppercut that dropped him to the floor.
“You're going to pay for that,” Chad said, while examining the deep wound running down his forearm. “You should have gotten on the winning team when you had the chance.”
Deckard groaned something in response.
“Still with us, huh? That's good.”
Chad strode towards him on tree trunk legs. Reeling back, he raised one foot high into the air, bringing his knee up as high as his massive quadriceps would allow. About to bring his boot down on Deckard's skull, the former soldier squirmed to the side at the last moment. Chad's boot slammed down on the floor in a cloud of dust.
Vulnerable on his back, Deckard kicked out, striking Chad just below the kneecap with his heel. Chad's knees buckled, almost sending him forward into a face plant. Deckard got to his feet as quickly as he could, stumbling on shaky footing.
Chad was back on him in a flash, moving amazingly fast for a man of his size. Deckard barely avoided his punch and counterattacked with one of his own. The hammer blow thwacked into Chad's face with the sound of cold meat being tenderized.
With Chad temporarily stunned, Deckard followed up with a frontal kick to the mercenary's abdomen before delivering a right hook that pounded into his jaw.
Recovering from the initial blow, Chad growled and threw a punch of his own. Deckard easily avoided the haymaker that the muscle man had unintentionally telegraphed from a mile away. Still in pain and seriously disoriented, he struggled with his footwork, attempting to stay out of Chad's reach. Deep down he knew that if the larger man got hold of him again, the fight would be over fast. He couldn't sustain another attack.
The two circled each other for tense seconds, each avoiding the other’s strikes. Finally Deckard saw an opening and reached out. His fingers formed a knife cutting edge, spearing into one of Chad's eyeballs, causing him to rear back with a scream.
Exploiting the opening, Deckard rained blows down on Chad's head. His fists acted like pistons driving the larger man back. Blinded, Chad stumbled and tripped, falling over a chair that some careless t
echnician had left leaning on its side as he fled.
Deckard leaned in with everything he had left. Bringing his boot down on his opponent's groin, Chad's entire body heaved, his body trying to vomit up the contents of his stomach. As his knuckles split and bled, blood was flung in every direction. It came from his hands, from Chad's knife wounds, from the gash on Deckard's forehead that he didn't even notice.
Reaching up, Chad grabbed Deckard's collar and pulled him down.
Losing his footing, Deckard's center of gravity shifted as Chad yanked him down while he simultaneously thrust the top of his head towards him. Deckard's nose made contact with Chad's bald dome in an explosion of blood.
Pushing Deckard off him, Chad let Deckard brace himself against a desk while he grunted his way back onto his feet. Both men were beaten and bloody. One of them wasn't walking away. Both were equally determined to make sure it wasn't him.
Deckard tried to attempt another low kick as Chad vaulted forward like a train engine. The strike didn't even register in Chad's nerve deadened, steroid fueled body. The head of security seized around Deckard's neck and squashed him down onto the desk as he attempted to throttle him.
Trying to snake his fingers back into Chad's eyes, the larger man squinted and tucked his chin in as his hands clamped shut like a vise, depriving Deckard of oxygen. Thrashing, Deckard beat wildly at Chad's jaw, ears, neck, anything he could get a hold of. His body was well protected by sheets of muscle and Deckard was growing weaker for every nanosecond that passed.
Chad screamed, his fingers closing around Deckard's trachea.
Joining his hands behind Chad's head, Deckard grabbed onto something on his wrist and pulled. The rubber band securing the garrote wire in place snapped as he pulled the wooden handhold. The piano wire spiraled over his hand before snapping taunt around the leather bracelet he wore.
Tossing the wire over Chad's head, Deckard wound it under his chin even as everything was fading to black. On the verge of passing out, Deckard pulled on both sides of the garrote wire.
Chad convulsed, caught completely off guard as the metal wire closed around his neck.
Sensing the opening, Deckard brought up a knee and placed it against Chad's chest. Able to take a quick breath he pushed Chad away with his knee while powering down on the garrote wire, attempting to bring both hands backwards and behind his own head with the wire wound around his opponent's neck.
The powerlifter's eyes went crazy, his face turning purple.
Large veins coursing through Chad's neck threatened to burst as he struggled uselessly as Deckard strained against both ends of the garrote wire. Every muscle and tendon in Deckard's brutalized body screamed as he flexed. Getting the toe of his boot up under Chad's chin, he pushed one final time with a gasp of exertion.
Chad's eyes went blank. His body fell to the floor with a thud.
With the garrote wire burrowed deep in Chad's neck, Deckard was pulled down after him and landed on the dead man's chest.
“I win,” Deckard choked out in a whisper.
Closing his eyes, Deckard hyperventilated, trying to get air back into his lungs.
He was a wreck. Every joint felt blown out, every muscle burned with exhaustion. Warm blood dripped down the side of his face. Absently, he undid the buckles of the leather bracelet and left the garrote wire in place. There was no way he was getting it back. Having cut so deep into flesh and bone, it had become a permanent fixture of Chad's physique.
Holding onto the side of the desk, Deckard steadied himself as he stood up and looked around. Bodies, bullet holes, and shattered glass were everywhere along with splatters of slowly congealing blood. He still felt dizzy as his eyes swept across the operation center.
Deckard walked on feet that felt like jelly. Bending over to retrieve his pistol, he felt something pop in his back.
Too many of his men had died to come this far.
Looking at the exit he had seen the puppet master flee to, Deckard checked the load in his 1911 before slamming the magazine home.
It was time to finish this.
Thirty Seven
“He's right behind me!”
Looking at each other, the contractors stared dumbfounded until gunfire thudded somewhere below deck. Flicking off safeties, the security team descended down the steps. Hieronymus knew he was feeding them into the meat grinder. Hopefully a little cannon fodder would keep O'Brien, or whoever he was, busy long enough for him to affect an escape.
With the elevators out of commission, the old man thanked himself for taking HGH and stem cell therapy treatments, his legs carrying him up a final flight of stairs to the top deck of the super-liner. Emerging in one of the lounge areas next to one of the ship's many pools, he shook his head at what a wreck his ship had become.
Black smoke billowed up from the side of the Crown of the Pacific. Thankfully, the wind was carrying it away and not obscuring the deck, but there was also the issue of the boat taking on water. The entire deck tilted at an odd angle.
He wouldn't lose any sleep over Chad. The gun shots that seemed to be shadowing his every step left no doubt in his mind as to what had happened to his chief of security.
The old oligarch cursed as he made his way towards the bow. He could already hear the faint buzz of rotor blades in the distance.
Deckard flung himself to the ground as hot metal cut through the air above him. Singling out the closest gunman, he walked a series of rounds up his body armor before they punched into his neck just under the jaw.
The last mercenary decided he had had enough. As he turned to run back in the opposite direction, Deckard cut him down.
Climbing the last flight of stairs, he moved out onto the top of the ship. Quickly scanning the deck, he spotted the white haired man fleeing as fast as he could towards the bow of the ship.
Feeling his blood boil, he ran.
“That's him right there!” Hieronymus yelled at his men while pointing back the way he had come.
A baker's dozen of contracted killers had just surged up from the lower levels. Black splotches of snot clung under their noses as they had just escaped the fire that raged below.
“Triple pay to whichever one of you manages to kill him.”
One of them spat a black tar ball onto the deck before smiling.
They liked that idea.
Taking a knee, Deckard let his elbow rest against his knee to support the weight of the captured M4 rifle.
Cold rain whipped at his face as Deckard fired on the men forming a wall of bodies in front of Hieronymus' escape route.
The first contractor went down in convulsions, a single 5.56 round having cored through his brain after entering the eye socket. His comrades jumped back in surprise as his body hit the ground, before training their weapons on Deckard.
Out on the deck there was precious little cover, leaving him with few options. Flicking the selector switch to automatic, Deckard did the last thing they expected.
Burning through the rest of his magazine, he held the rifle at his hip, spraying their front lines as he charged forward. The gunmen sought cover, a few finding it, others caught out in the open to absorb the auto fire. A few threw themselves down against the ground.
One of the American contractors looked wide-eyed, frozen in position, at the man running straight for him. The M4's barrel smoked, the bolt locked back on an empty chamber. His fatigues were ripped and torn, his face covered in a mask of brown colored dried blood.
Using his empty rifle as a blunt weapon, Deckard smashed the contractor in the face. He heard teeth and bone crack under his butt stock.
Releasing his M4 and letting it fall to the ground, he grabbed the rifle barrel of another opponent as he attempted to swing towards him and bring his rifle into play. The rifle spat a foot of flame as the contractor repeatedly pulled the trigger, Deckard redirecting the fire into another enemy as he grasped the barrel in his fist.
Clocking the rifleman in the jaw, Deckard tried to take control of the w
eapon only to find it strapped to its owner's body armor by a nylon strap that served as a sling.
Letting the unconscious body fall to the deck, Deckard transitioned to his 1911, double-tapping a gunner that appeared from behind the bar. The twin .45 caliber shots thumped into the contractor's shoulder and neck spilling him backwards.
Deckard shuddered as a rifle shot rang out like a thunderclap.
Behind him, a headless corpse fell to the deck with a thud, a wash of blood and gore sprayed out in a landing strip up to Deckard's feet. A readied sub-machine gun clattered next to the corpse.
The shot had been from a large caliber rifle.
A .300 WinMag if he wasn't mistaken.
Hieronymus ran.
Freeing a hand-held radio from his jacket pocket, the old man flipped it to the on position and turned the volume to high.
“I'm right here, dammit,” he said, keying the radio and waving his other hand high above his head.
The gunfire was getting closer.
“Where the hell are you?”
Fear crept into his bones. It was then that it dawned on him that this was really happening. A piece of hot metal whizzed over his head, shaking him out of his epiphany.
The radio gave off a hiss of static.
“This is Juliet-23 to Package, do you copy?”
“Yes!” Hieronymus yelled into the radio with a rush of relief. “Yes, I’m exactly where you were instructed to rendezvous with me.”
A black teardrop shape raced through the gray sky. It was well past dawn, but the overcast sky created by the passing storm left him standing cold in the rain. The teardrop raced forward, rotor blades bleating out a steady rhythm as the helicopter came in for the pick up.
“Roger, Package. We see you.”
He'd called in the helicopter when it became clear that they were under attack. The pilots had rushed from the enclave off the coast of Hawaii, refueling once from a cache stored on an atoll so small it barely existed. Looking over his shoulder, he saw his soldiers-for-hire fighting it out with each other. Meat against meat, throwing themselves away for nothing.