Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition)

by Ross Sidor

Immediately, Avery felt a pair of large hands clamp around his shoulders from behind.

  Kheda effortlessly lifted Avery off the Russian and slammed him face first against the end cap of the nearest uranium container. Before Avery recovered, Kheda came in close, grabbed the back of Avery’s head, and rammed it face-first against the cylinder’s steel surface. Then he punched low, hitting Avery hard and repeatedly in the kidney. Avery threw his head back and cried out. The pain ruptured through his abdomen like a shockwave. He felt the acidic burn of bile rise up the back of his throat. After three direct hits to his kidney, his legs caved like wet noodles, and he sank.

  Kheda caught Avery beneath his armpits as he went down, heaved him back up, spun him around, and punched him in the face, re-opening the gash in his cheek.

  As he leaned up against the cylinders, to keep from falling over, Avery saw a blurry, spinning double set of Khedas in front of him, about to deliver a right hook. Avery sidestepped fast, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process, and Kheda’s knuckles impacted against the steel of the container hard enough to break bone, but the Chechen wasn’t fazed.

  Kheda turned halfway around, locked onto Avery, and swung his fist again. Avery dodged it, pivoted, and landed a kick below Kheda’s sternum. The Chechen absorbed the blow and clamped his big hands around Avery’s ankle. He tugged it sharply up, toppling him. Avery landed on his back, smacking his tailbone against the hard steel of the deck.

  Avery lifted his head. Behind Kheda, he saw the Russian getting back onto his feet. Aleksa lay still on the deck.

  The Russian drew his pistol, but Kheda waved a restraining hand, indicating he wanted to deal with Avery himself and that he still had the situation under control. The Russian reluctantly took a few steps back, gave Kheda space.

  Avery backed away slowly across the deck in an effort to increase the gap between him and the advancing Chechen. Distress signals shot through his nervous system from every part of his body to his brain. He wasn’t able to ignore the pain in his abdomen and ribs and head, but he pushed through it and sucked in a painful lungful of air. Avery exploded onto his feet, bolted across the deck, and slammed his overturned shoulder into the Chechen.

  Knocked back a couple steps, Kheda responded by punching down into the back of Avery’s skull. Then he wrapped his hands tightly around Avery’s neck, squeezing his larynx and trachea, Avery grew quickly dizzy and ready to pass out.

  Then Kheda started moving, stepping out on his left foot and sliding the right over, dragging Avery’s deadweight with him. Two more steps in the same direction, feeling the cold breeze whipping against them, and Avery realized the son of a bitch intended to throw him out the back of the plane. Through a sideways glance, he saw the patch of endless blue sky filling the space of the lowered cargo ramp, fifteen feet way.

  Avery thrashed and kicked and threw his weight in the opposite direction and planted his feet firmly against the deck and pushed against the direction in which Kheda dragged him, doing everything within his limited power to prevent the Chechen from advancing another inch with him.

  But Kheda was much stronger and had a solid forty pounds and five inches on Avery, and Avery saw black spots popping up across his vision and his lungs received no air, and it was just a matter of time before his legs slackened and gave out or he blacked out.

  Kheda brought Avery in closer, wrangling to get better control over him. He wrapped his long arms around Avery, beneath his armpits, interlocking his fingers behind his neck, his hot, smelly breath against Avery’s face.

  The Russian stayed close to them but not intervening, the pistol still in his hand, lowered at his side. He was oblivious to Aleksa stepping up behind him until he saw a blur of lightning fast movement in front of his face and felt the steel chain between her cuffs digging into his throat as she pulled it back and up. His eyes bulged, and he grabbed at the chain, trying to get his fingers between it and his throat, while trying to shake off his attacker. He slammed his weight back against the fuselage, sandwiching Aleksa, but she refused to let go, and struggled with him.

  Twelve feet away, Kheda had his back to them, but Avery saw it all. He raised a knee into Kheda’s crotch, mashing his balls together. That gave the Chechen a surprise, knocked the air out of him, and Avery felt the grip around his throat slacken for just a second.

  It was enough.

  Inhaling deep, Avery snapped his head back, opened his mouth wide, and chomped his teeth down around Kheda’s nose. Kheda responded instantly by trying to pull away, but Avery bit down harder, sinking his teeth in and locking his jaw tight. He thrashed his head from side to side, his teeth crunching and tearing through cartilage and tearing blood vessels and sinus cavities. Blood and mucus filled his mouth.

  Tears pooled in Kheda’s eyes. His mouth was agape, and Avery heard him screaming, howling like a wild animal, over the barrage of the engines. Kheda released Avery’s neck and took Avery’s head in his hands, squeezing his skull and pushing his head back and trying to pry his jaws apart. His big hands covered Avery’s face, and Avery ignored the thumb gouging into his eyeball and the tip of a pinky finger far up his nostril. He bit down hard as he possibly could, grinding his teeth together, and forcefully snapped his head back.

  Kheda immediately released Avery and raised his hands to the gaping hole in the center of his face. Dark blood spurted from the hole.

  Avery came around and kicked Kheda’s knee out from behind, toppling him over onto his other knee, and then Avery stepped back and kicked him in the chest. Then he spit out the nose and a mouthful of blood and snot. The nose flew past Kheda and was sucked out the back of the jet.

  Kheda screamed and launched himself at Avery, wrapping his arms around Avery and taking them both to the deck. They tumbled and rolled over a couple times as Kheda tried to throw Avery’s weight over to the ramp, but Avery wrapped his legs around Kheda, locking them together, and they both slid halfway down the declined slope of the ramp.

  Avery ended up on top, and he head butted the bloody gap in Kheda’s face.

  With Kheda looking sufficiently dazed and no longer putting up a fight, Avery started to get back up. Along the way, he positioned his knee over Kheda’s abdomen and dropped his weight on it. Kheda’s shoulders and head heaved off the ramp and bounced back down. Saliva, mucus, and blood spattered Avery’s face.

  Avery stood up. Keeping his eyes on Kheda, not wanting to look past the airframe into the vast open space, he began to back away.

  But Kheda was determined and wasn’t going to stay still. He moved slower now, less coordinated, somehow managing to look even worse than Avery. His face and shirt were drenched in blood, and his eyes looked glossy and dilated.

  Avery risked getting closer again and delivered a kick to Kheda’s face. The Chechen’s head rolled back, but his reflexes were still sharp. He grabbed hold of Avery’s foot with both hands and twisted the ankle hard to the left.

  Acting fast, to avoid having his ankle cracked, Avery dropped, driving the sole of his opposite foot into Kheda’s chest. Still clinging to Avery, determined to never let go, Kheda took Avery with him as he slipped further down the ramp.

  The interior of the cargo hold behind him, Avery saw nothing but open sky, white clouds, and the shimmering surface of the Caspian Sea far below. He felt the vice-like grip clamped around his foot. The endless wind blasted his face, forcing him to tilt his head away to breathe.

  Nearly half off the right side of the ramp, with one leg dangling in space, Kheda continued pulling on Avery’s right foot, determined to drag him off the plane. As he slid down the ramp on his back, Avery kicked out and planted his opposite foot against the long, vertical support strut that extended from the ramp into the airframe above, stopping his fall. If he took that foot away, Kheda’s two hundred plus pounds would easily take them both over the edge.

  But Kheda didn’t seem to mind too much. In fact, this realization only fuelled him further. He stared into Avery’s eyes as he continued heaving on Aver
y’s leg, exerting the same brute strength he used to row 150lb dumbbells.

  Avery felt his leg budging against the pylon, nearly giving out, bending further at the knee, and his ass slid another couple inches down the ramp. He couldn’t hold this position much longer and, with his hands locked behind his back, he had no means of fighting off Kheda or grabbing onto anything.

  But then the ramp jerked abruptly into an upward motion. As it lifted back up, the force pulling Avery toward the end of the ramp gave way, and the ramp quickly became level. Avery removed his foot from the support pylon and smashed the sole of his right boot into Kheda’s face.

  Reeling from the blow, the Chechen lost his grip on Avery’s left foot. To no avail, he frantically tried to grab onto something, anything, and his hands slid over the smooth metal surface as he dropped off the ramp, into the sky, and out of sight.

  The ramp continued rising, inclined steeply now, and Avery fell clumsily over onto the cargo hold’s deck. The compartment became darker and calmer as the jet’s tail end sealed shut, blotting out the sun and cutting off the blasting torrent of air.

  Aleksa stood near the control module.

  The Russian lay several feet away. His head was twisted around, with a deep, bloody red gouge implanted around his throat in a chain-link pattern. Aleksa had his gun. She bent over near Avery appraising his injuries, but he indicated that he was okay, even though he didn’t feel it. He was unable to suppress the urge to vomit, and he threw up the contents of his stomach onto the deck. Even after his stomach had nothing left, his body continuing retching hard for several seconds.

  Aleksa began shaking. Avery knew that the effects of the adrenaline were wearing off now, and she was likely becoming conscious of her own injuries and the realization that she’d just taken a human being’s life.

  And they still weren’t out of this yet.

  She helped Avery get his hands under his legs and in front of his body, and he took the gun from her. She was only too grateful to be relieved of it. It was a GSh-18, a 9mm commonly used by Russian cops. Avery checked the magazine. It had a full clip, seventeen rounds, and he found another magazine on the dead Russian. No handcuff keys, though.

  Avery recalled Cramer telling Kheda to dump the bodies in the Caspian. He supposed that meant they were about three hours out from Tajikistan, if they were flying non-stop. That would place them somewhere over Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan soon.

  He wondered how much time needed to pass before the other Russians in the passenger compartment wondered why Kheda hadn’t returned yet and came back here to check up on him. Probably not much longer, and Avery felt in no shape to take on another handful of mafiya thugs.

  Aleksa helped Avery onto his feet and followed him down the length of the cargo hold to the bulkhead separating the forward cabin. He held the pistol two handed in front of him and stood slightly to the side of the closed hatch.

  Opposite him, Aleksa positioned herself likewise, and Avery motioned for her to open the door. Ready to immediately step out of the way, she gave the latch a pull, but it didn’t budge, locked from the other side and leaving them no choice but to sit and wait it out until someone up front got worried about his friends and decided to poke his head back here. They wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming from the other side, so Avery remained positioned exactly where he was, GSh-18 held ready. He directed Aleksa to lie down on the deck, so that she would immediately catch the attention of anyone stepping through the hatchway.

  It took almost thirty minutes for someone to become curious enough to take a peak.

  Without warning, the hatch slid open, and a Russian in a leather jacket with a buzz cut and glasses stood in the open space in the bulkhead and stuck his head into the cargo hold. He carried a Makarov at his side, finger indexed over the trigger guard. His eyes immediately locked onto Aleksa on the deck. Seeing no one else in sight, he frowned and entered the cargo hold. Then, abruptly aware of a nearby presence through his peripherals, his eyes shifted right, widening in an oh-shit look when he set his eyes on Avery.

  From two feet away, Avery tapped the trigger and put a single searing hot round through the Russian’s cheek. The body collapsed straight to the deck, and blood drained rapidly from the face wound. Avery kicked the Makarov out of the dead man’s hand, held the GSh-18 in front of him, and pivoted around to face the open hatchway and to stare down another Russian standing ten feet away in the passenger cabin. Seeing his comrade go down, the Russian was already reaching for his own weapon and screaming frantically to warn the others.

  As he exploded through the hatchway into the cabin, Avery fired twice, counting his own rounds, and dropped the shocked Russian.

  The passenger area had been converted into a first class compartment, with high-backed, plush leather seats positioned in fours around oak tables—two chairs facing each other across a table—new carpeting, and a kitchenette area behind the cockpit bulkhead.

  Two Russians were seated, facing Avery, with laptop computers in front of them. One was already on his feet and going for a pistol holstered at his side, while yelling out commands in his native tongue. Avery drilled him between the eyes, and then shifted his aim and double-tapped the man seated next to him.

  Avery kept moving, advancing down the narrow aisle of the compartment. Recalling the CQB exercises aboard the Boeing fuselage at the Point, he moved swiftly, taking wide deliberate steps, to cover as much ground as possible while he tracked for targets, his eyes sweeping up and down, left to right, looking over chairs and under tables, looking for movement or shapes of a human body. He was slightly bent at the back, with shoulders and head leaning forward. With the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he was suddenly oblivious to the pain in his head and ribs.

  Another Russian popped up from one of the chairs on his left. Avery caught a glimpse of black metal in the Russian’s hand and shot him twice in the chest, then again in the throat as he went down to his knees. Blood speckled across the upholstery as he plopped over, his head bouncing off the corner of the table before he hit the carpet.

  Avery advanced another four feet down the aisle.

  No targets presented themselves.

  He approached the next sections of seating cautiously, expecting to find another Russian or two using the furniture as concealment, waiting for him.

  The first groupings of seats were clear on either side.

  But the next four chairs in the line weren’t.

  A Russian was crouched down behind the table on the right side, aiming his gun over the surface of the table. Avery blasted the Slavic face looking up at him and swung his aim around to the chairs on his left.

  Empty.

  The cabin was clear.

  Avery sank into one of the armchairs, keeping his eyes locked on the cockpit door, the only source of possible further targets. Within the cabin’s close confines, the pervasive stench of cordite and burnt gunpowder lingered in the air.

  A whir of movement recalled his attention, and Avery snapped the GSh-18 back up, finger tightening over the trigger.

  He lowered the gun when he saw Aleksa coming through the connecting hatchway. She shut the hatch and ran over to him.

  “Oh my god, are you all right?”

  Her voice sounded muffled, like he had cotton stuffed in his ears. Both their ears were ringing. “Yeah, just a little beat up. Are you hurt?”

  She looked him over. “I don’t think I’m in any position to complain.”

  Avery went to the kitchen space and rinsed his mouth out with water, spitting blood and chunks of vomit out into the sink, then took a long gulp of water to hydrate. “We need to access the cockpit,” he said. “Otherwise this plane’s still set to land at Ayni, and we’ll be right back where we started.”

  He’d already tried the latch and wasn’t surprised that the cockpit was locked. The pilots had likely heard the gunshots and knew that something was wrong. That meant they’d already radioed ahead and reported there was trouble. The entire Russian mi
litary contingent at Ayni would be waiting for the plane to land.

  With Aleksa’s help, he memorized in Russian how to give the order to open the cockpit door or he’d blow off the heads of the surviving crew back here, and he delivered the line with his angriest, most dominating voice. When the pilots called his bluff and failed to respond, he fired a shot into a nearby body and repeated the command.

  This time, after several seconds as the flight crew debated their options, the cockpit door opened. Avery stormed in and pointed the GSh-18 at the pilot’s head, screaming at him in English to keep his hands on the controls. The pilot stared blankly at him and responded in Russian.

  “Translate for me,” Avery told Aleksa. “Tell him to divert the plane and land at Dushanbe International. He can declare an in-flight emergency, or whatever the fuck he needs to do, to get landing clearance. And tell him to stay off the radio. If he contacts anyone other than Dushanbe air traffic control, he’s dead. Tell him.”

  Kabul or Bagram, where the US military could secure the aircraft and its cargo, would have been the ideal choice, but Avery didn’t know anyone offhand he could contact in Afghanistan with that kind of clout. Looking at the console gauges, it didn’t look like they had the fuel anyway. Six thousand miles pushed the Antonov’s maximum range.

  Aleksa repeated the instructions in Russian to the pilot and translated his response. “He said that you won’t shoot him. Who would fly the plane?” Her tone indicated that she saw the pilot’s point and thought this an exercise in absurdity.

  “Tell him that you will,” Avery said without hesitation.

  Aleksa arched an eyebrow and relayed the command.

  The pilot smirked and responded.

  Aleksa shook her head. “He said that he doesn’t believe you.”

  “Whether or not he believes me,” Avery said, keeping the pistol pointed at the pilot’s head, “ask him if he really wants to call my bluff and find out. And let him know I’d rather go down in this plane than land and end up in the hands of more Russian assholes.”