The Wrecking Crew

by Taylor Zajonc

  “Out of missiles,” reported the colonel.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” demanded Bettencourt. “That didn’t do shit. Do they have time to rearm?”

  “No time,” Westmoreland said. “But we can order the pilots to remotely ram the ship.”

  “Do it.” Bettencourt, breathing heavily, wiped sweat off his forehead. A disorganized patch of hair fell over his face.

  Orders received, the formation of drones whipped around and lined up for a final kamikaze run at the bridge castle. One after another, they threw themselves into the tombstone-shaped bridge castle from all sides. First burst out of the structure, consuming it in black, billowing clouds of smoke.

  “It’s still coming!” shouted the lawyer.

  “We’re not done yet,” said the colonel. “Just wait until my trigger-pullers get on board the Erno Rubik. They’re a pack of heartbreakers and life-takers. If I were Dalmar Abdi, I’d be shitting my pants right about now.”

  “Certainly,” added Hassan. “It’s not as if your mercenaries have ever gotten their arses handed to them by a few pirates before.”

  Three Blackhawk attack helicopters swooped in after the expended drones, preparing to board and take the container ship. Two of the helicopters came in low over the bow, dropping fast-ropes onto the deck. A dozen men slid out of the aircraft, distant and oblivious to the pirate’s intermittent fire into their ranks.

  The third helicopter broke off from providing overwatch cover and charged the bridge. The Blackhawk turned to the side, exposing the side door gunner to strafe. The gunner fired a long staccato salvo into the bridge until the tail rotor caught a strand of nearly invisible high-tensile steel monofilament strung between bridge and the midship crane. The rear rotor blades sheared off, sending the out-of-control helicopter spinning downwards, knocking a tall stack of containers off the side of the Erno as it tumbled into the sea.

  “Ouch,” said Jonah. “That looked expensive.”

  “It’s insured,” replied Bettencourt, with a far-away look in his eyes.

  “Your premiums might be going up in the near future,” cracked Jonah.

  The remaining two helicopters retreated from the bridge of the Erno Rubik, firing continuously as they strafed, hanging back and away from the wires. Heavy gunship rounds impacted the structure until the helicopters broke off the attack, out of ammunition.

  The SS Erno Rubik was now close, too close to stop the impact.

  Far below the bird’s-eye view of the penthouse, the mercenary mothership made a desperate attempt to ram the cargo ship against the port side bow, frantically trying to push the cargo supertransport off course. It hit with a crushing blow, sinking her angular bow deep into the hull of the Erno like a prison shank. Hopelessly outclassed and disabled, the damaged ship scraped and bashed along the entire length of the Erno Rubik without so much as nudging the massive cargo ship an inch.

  “Brace for impact!” Colonel Westmoreland shouted.

  The SS Erno Rubik slammed into Anconia Island with the deafening impact of a tsunami. The penthouse rocked, knocking Charles Bettencourt to his knees while Colonel Westmoreland fell off his feet and onto the marble floor, glass shattering and raining down around them.

  With the sound of a thousand diesel locomotives dropped into a chasm, the Erno Rubik drove deep into the heart of the city, splitting the fault line between platforms. The smaller office buildings on either side crumbled, joined by an avalanche of shipping containers. From the high vantage point, Jonah watched as the Erno Rubik cleaved the entire artificial island in half. The container ship wallowed, covered by collapsed stacks of shipping containers and demolished buildings, weighing down on the supporting structure of Anconia itself. On the jetway far below, dazed and disoriented masses stared up, forced to witness the destruction as the very ground buckled beneath their island.

  “Well,” said Charles Bettencourt as he surveyed the chaos from the penthouse windows, arms crossed. “I really don’t see what else I can do here. Colonel, it’s been a pleasure.”

  With a curt nod, the spry executive walked towards the sliding glass doors to the helicopter landing pad.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” demanded Colonel Westmoreland, resting his bloody palm on a holstered pistol. “You are going to stay and defend this fucking position.”

  “Am I?” shouted the CEO, waving Jonah’s pearlhandled pistol in the air. “Because I thought that’s what I’ve been paying you for.”

  The colonel didn’t respond, and simply flicked the leather catch off his holster, ready to draw.

  Without waiting, Charles thrust his pistol towards the colonel and fired three times. The mercenary grunted and stepped back as the bullets hit him in the unprotected abdomen just below his body armor, his customized pistol slipping from his slashed palm. Wobbling on his feet, the massive soldier slowly tipped forward like a felled tree, landing face-first on the ground with a bone-rattling crash. Blood flowed out of his stomach wound, collecting in the seams between the marble tiles.

  “I think I’ll be leaving now,” said the CEO, throwing the now-empty 1911 to the ground.

  “What about me?” asked the lawyer. “Take me to the helicopter, goddammit!”

  “What about you?” mimicked the CEO as he walked towards the glass doors. “I don’t see a handicapped ramp.”

  Colonel Westmoreland rose to his knees, animated by pure rage alone. The hulking man lurched forward towards his employer, blood gushing out of his belly unstaunched and dripping down to his crotch, teeth gritted in pain and fury, fists clenched and muscles bulging. He stood transfixed as Charles Bettencourt boarded the helicopter without so much as a wayward look back to his ruined island, his betrayed men.

  Screaming, the lawyer pulled himself out of the chair, dragging two cast-encased legs behind him as he pulled himself up the stairs towards the landing pad. The blades of the executive helicopter spun faster, cutting through the air, until the entire vehicle lifted off the pad and soared through the air, away from Anconia Island for the last time.

  The blood-soaked colonel fixed his pain-deadened, glazed-over eyes on Jonah and Hassan. He drew a knife out of the front of his chest armor and crawled towards them. Too beaten and exhausted to fight, Jonah grimaced and thrust his zip tied hands out in a desperate act of self-protection, all the while waiting for the mercenary’s knife to sink into his chest. He felt a fumbling on his zip ties, heard a snap, and the pressure around his wrists came free. Having cut him loose, Colonel Westmoreland turned his attention to the doctor to do the same.

  Incredulous, Jonah and Hassan stared, rubbing their raw, bruised wrists as the colonel wobbled on his feet, face pale from blood loss. He collapsed forward onto his knees.

  “Help me carry him to the elevator!” shouted Hassan.

  “Give me a minute,” protested Jonah as he dragged himself to his feet. Picking up his pearl-handled pistol from the ground, he half-limped, half-crawled over to the mahogany desk. Jonah threw open the top drawer, pocketing a pair of Tibaldi fountain pens, a single Mont Blanc, and a Patek Philippe wristwatch.

  “What the hell are you doing?” demanded Hassan.

  “I’m stealing shit, goddammit!” Jonah shouted. “Just give me just one fucking minute!”

  Grunting as he carried himself over to the nearest free-standing glass slab display, Jonah kick it free of the mountings. The display tilted over, slowly at first, but then picked up speed as it fell and shattered against the marble floor. Jonah leaned over and brushed the glass off an ornately tattooed yakuza skin, rolled up the human leather and tucked it under an armpit.

  “Now we can go,” said Jonah. “These are worth a shitload on the black market.”

  Jonah shoved himself underneath the mercenary’s other massive arm. Between the two of them, they managed to drag the colonel to the elevator. Westmoreland’s head lolled as he struggled to move his feet, to somehow assist with his own evacuation.

  Jonah and Hassan collapsed, dropping Westm
oreland to the elevator floor. The doctor stripped away the colonel’s shirt, revealing an ugly pattern of blood and bullet wounds, trying to find a place to apply pressure as Jonah punched the button for the lobby before slumping beside him.

  “Don’t leave me here!” screamed the lawyer as the door slid shut.

  “Is he going to make it?” asked Jonah, turning his attention to the colonel.

  “The big man will outlive us all,” said Hassan, patting the man on the chest. The doctor then shook his head at Jonah—comforting words aside, the wounded soldier had little time.

  “This island’s going to fall,” Westmoreland whispered with a wistful, far-away baritone. “You can hear the metal fatigue. It’s all snapping like so many twigs. Her spine is severed—nothing is holding her together.”

  “If you don’t make it, do you have anybody we should talk to on your behalf?” asked Jonah, reaching underneath the mercenary’s shaved head with a hand to support his thick neck.

  “Not anymore.” Blood dripped out of the corner of his mouth. “Any man worth seeing, I’ll meet again in the next few minutes.” The bleeding man coughed, his breath ragged and rattling. “Maybe I’ll see my wife,” he wheezed. “She was a good woman, so maybe not. It’s okay; I got women in the other place, too.”

  “I can get him to the Scorpion,” offered Hassan, desperately trying to think of a solution. “My facilities there are rudimentary—but he might have a chance.”

  “Don’t bother,” rasped the colonel. “This is as good a place to die as any.”

  With that, his eyes rolled back into his massive head and his ragged breath grew short and stopped. Hassan rolled the mercenary’s eyelids shut as the elevator doors opened. Jonah and the doctor exited the elevator, leaving the inert body abandoned behind them.

  The pair wove their way into the grassy courtyard, taking cover as the remaining few soldiers dashed across the field, trying to find some way off Anconia before it slipped beneath the waves. The island moaned a deep, pain-filled rumble. Driven into the fissure between the platforms, the superstructure of the SS Erno Rubik slipped from view, the behemoth slowly sinking into the ocean.

  “We don’t have long,” said Jonah, surveying the destruction as an empty office building crumbled in a cloud of concrete, steel members and dust.

  “What do we do?” asked the doctor as he shielded his face from the sudden blast of wind and debris.

  Without a word, Jonah lead the way over to the edge of the island, a simple glass railing overlooking a three-hundred foot drop into the ocean below.

  “We jump,” said Jonah. He swung both legs over the side of the railing, surveying the stomach-churning drop below. Hassan mirrored his movements, and the two men sat at the edge of the precipice.

  “On three?” asked Hassan.

  “Maybe next time,” said Jonah, pushing the doctor off the railing. The surgeon screamed, wheeling his arms and legs through the air as he fell, ending with a massive splash into the waves far below.

  Jonah leapt into space. The water rushed up to meet him with incredible speed, air swooshing past his ears, while holding onto the rolled-up human leather as tightly as he could.

  Clinch those buttcheeks shut, thought Jonah a split second before impact. Tumbling through the frothy water, he stared up at the surface nearly fifteen feet above him, white foam and dark sediment surrounding him. Everything was dark and cloudy, he couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Despite his twisted ankles, he managed two hard kicks to the surface, popping up beside the doctor. Too stunned to be angry, the doctor treaded water beside him.

  A lone lifeboat from the Erno Rubik approached from the side, slowing as it reached them. Inside, Dalmar Abdi stood at the bow, bare-chested with a rocket-propelled grenade strapped to his back. Behind him, several more lifeboats fled towards the distant shores of Somalia, abandoning the fight.

  “My friend Jonah Blackwell!” Dalmar reached down to pluck both men out of the water. “And my brother Hassan the Butcher! I am so pleased you have lived. Jonah—I believe this makes three times I have saved your life.”

  “But who’s counting?” said Jonah as he slumped into the bottom of the fiberglass boat.

  “I am counting!” said Dalmar. “You shall name your firstborn child after me!”

  “What if it’s a girl?” asked Hassan, collapsing next to Jonah.

  “Ha!” shouted Dalmar with a frighteningly gregarious laugh. “Then Jonah must name her Dread Pirate Dalmar Abdi! A good name for a woman, she will bear many grandsons!”

  With that, the pirate commander kicked the lifeboat into gear, speeding towards the Scorpion as she lay surfaced several hundred yards away from the mortally wounded island. Behind them, the smallest of the three platforms collapsed into the sea, sending out a massive tidal wave through the floating debris and oil. Fires broke out in the other abandoned platforms, sending columns of inky-black smoke skyward as thousands of survivors watched from the still-floating runway.

  Alexis waited on the forward deck of the submarine, weapon slung behind her back, waving the lifeboat in. Dalmar beached the craft against the deck and helped Jonah and Hassan out, one after another.

  “I knew you were alive!” Alexis shouted, throwing her arms around the doctor. Hassan smiled and embraced her back despite the pain in his battered body.

  “Let’s get you inside,” said Alexis. “Vitaly says a US Navy carrier group is inbound to rescue survivors.”

  “I should not be here when they arrive,” said Dalmar. “My men are returning home, but—” he turned to Jonah. “May I join your crew, Captain Jonah?”

  “Welcome aboard,” said Jonah. “I could always use another potato-peeler. Doc—let’s go. We have to move.”

  Arm encircling Alexis’s waist, Hassan ignored him, staring at the stricken city like Lot’s wife lamenting the destruction of Sodom. “I’m going to watch,” he said, his voice far away. “I believe I’ve earned the right.”

  Jonah turned to see Anconia Island, still gleaming in the morning sun. The remaining two platforms failed in sequence, both halves of the city collapsing into the water with the roar of an earthquake, spilling into the sea as the floating runway detached with the sound of snapping steel cables, setting the crowded platform adrift. The debris settled, slipping beneath the waves. And within moments, it was as if the glittering island had never graced the face of the earth.

  EPILOGUE

  THREE WEEKS LATER …

  The Scorpion slipped through the luminescent fog of a cool Puget Sound morning, the sky and the surface of the ocean blending together in a seamless gradient. Silently navigating a hidden cove, the sub slowed as it approached the massive concrete dock of a long-abandoned shipyard. Jonah opened the top hatch to the conning tower, squinting against the glare. The submarine bumped up against the dock and he scrambled down the exterior boarding ladder onto the deck, pulling long mooring lines out of hidden compartments and roping the bulky length of the vessel against the concrete wall.

  Hassan brought a heavy leather briefcase out of the conning tower as Jonah inspected the ropes at the docking cleats. Satisfied with his work, Jonah took the briefcase from the doctor and hopped onto the dock, walking up the length towards shore.

  Frizzy brown hair blowing in the sea breeze, Marissa Jenkins purposefully strode out to meet Jonah, anger building with every step. Her eyes stared daggers and were matched by the pursed scowl of a scorned ex. Jonah suddenly found himself remembering that he’d never technically broken things off.

  “Hey Issa,” said Jonah, trying to break the ice with a broad smile.

  Marissa stopped dead and slapped him squarely across the face, hard enough to leave a bright red handprint.

  “Ow!” protested Jonah. “What was that—?”

  “You said you were bringing a ship in for repairs,” said Marissa with an accusatory tone. “That is a submarine. Do you have any idea how much trouble I could get in?”

  “So we’ll throw a tarp
over it,” said Jonah, rubbing his stinging face as he set the briefcase down. “And it’s nice to see you, too.”

  Hassan and Alexis walked down deck of the submarine. The engineer slipped her hand into the doctor’s as the two jumped onto the dock to join Jonah.

  “Hey,” said Jonah to the pair. “Where’s Dalmar and Vitaly?”

  Hassan gave a pained look. “They’re … uh … still …” he began.

  “I think the technical term is banging,” added Alexis, squeezing Hassan’s hand.

  “Banging?” asked Jonah.

  “Like a screen door in a tornado, Cap’n,” said Alexis.

  Marissa shook her head in irritation at the whole situation even as she gestured to a collection of shipping containers and bulky equipment crates on the shore next to the concrete dock. “So everything you wanted is here—air lifters, winches, arc welders, plasma cutter, gantry cranes, newly rolled high-strength steel plating, and all manner of electronics. It’s everything you’ll need to repair your … ship. We’ll bring in a diesel barge in a couple of days to top off your tanks.”

  “Much obliged,” said Jonah. “I’m very impressed.”

  “Well, you’d better not fuck me on payment,” said Marissa. “Because I’m out serious money on this, especially the rental deposits. Keep in mind you already disappeared on me once.”

  “It’s covered,” said Jonah, snapping open the briefcase and swiveling it around to show the contents to Marissa.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Those are … gold bars. Lots of gold bars.”

  “Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent pure,” said Jonah. “Had them assayed myself.”

  “What in holy hell am I supposed to do with gold bars?”

  “It was either this or Indonesian rupiahs,” said Hassan. “Or Burmese kyats—”

  “This will be fine, thank you,” interrupted Marissa, taking the suitcase from Jonah and closing it. “So how did you get this much gold?”

  “You’d be very surprised what collectors pay for black market human skin these days,” said Jonah.

  “Ugh! I shouldn’t have even asked,” said Marissa, putting her index finger and thumb on the bridge of her nose and squeezing. Jonah recognized it as a symptom of an early-onset tension headache.