Apocalypse

by Dean Crawford

  He had been fifteen when tragedy struck the little village, a particularly severe snow storm producing an avalanche that killed almost half of his class. As others cried, Olaf struggled to contain his joy at seeing half a dozen of his hated tormentors hacked from the compacted ice, their purple faces twisted in the rigor mortis of death.

  Days later, a ship had arrived bearing a large blue IRIS logo, and Joaquin Abell had promised money to rebuild the damaged school. Awed by the giant yacht and its charismatic owner, Olaf had seen his chance to escape the miserable little town in which he had been entrapped for so long. He had begged Joaquin personally for a job aboard the Event Horizon, only to be dismissed out of hand. Stricken with grief, for the first time in his life Olaf had taken matters into his own hands and stowed away aboard the giant yacht.

  Years of evading his tormentors had given Olaf a primal instinct for survival, and it was almost three weeks before he was discovered by engineers and dragged before Joaquin Abell once more. To his surprise, Joaquin had agreed not to have him returned home. Maybe he had seen something in Olaf’s desperate eyes or had simply taken pity on him, but by that evening Olaf Jorgenson was in his own quarters and sailing away from his homeland forever, into a world he had never seen before.

  Over the years that had passed since, Olaf had grown closer to Joaquin. As a wiry little boy, working on the yacht had toughened his muscles and seen him grow stronger. His increasing size and confidence had led him to take up body-building, and that in turn had led him into the use of steroids. His habit financed by his employer, who always seemed to know precisely what he needed and wanted, Olaf grew into a giant. Now, at six foot four and 260 pounds, Olaf was an unstoppable force of nature who knew nothing of the meaning of the word compromise.

  Olaf turned and followed the sidewalk around the edge of the court’s parking lot, his cold blue eyes seeking his target. It was clear to Olaf that, win, lose or draw, Katherine Abell was not going to be able to prevent the court from hearing the details on the files held by Macy Lieberman. Therefore, he would ensure that the files simply disappeared.

  The parking lot was overlooked on four corners by CCTV cameras. Olaf looked across the lot and saw several cars parked beneath a clump of palm trees that hung listlessly on the humid air. The trees were mature, the fronds hanging six or seven feet long and obscuring the area under the tree from the view of the cameras.

  Several cars had parked there, the owners evidently seeking the shade offered by the trees. Olaf worked his way around the edge of the lot, careful to walk nonchalantly and not draw any more attention to himself other than that caused by his impressive physique.

  He spotted an old man in a cheap suit shuffling toward a battered old Dodge Polara, its red paint faded by years spent sweltering beneath the Florida sun. Olaf guessed the man’s age as about sixty-five. The car, the threadbare clothes and the nicotine-stained teeth all told Olaf the same story: old, alone, and won’t be missed.

  Olaf moved around to the sidewalk in front of the Polara, the palm trees shielding him from the view of the cameras as the old man limped around to the driver’s door and reached out for the handle. As he opened the door, Olaf leapt over the parking lot fence and was directly behind the old man in two giant strides. Even as the old-timer turned his head to squint up at Olaf with rheumy eyes, Olaf reached out with one huge hand that encircled the old man’s jaw like a glove around a baseball. He felt a thick wedge of his greasy, lank hair squeeze against his other hand as it folded around the back of the man’s neck. The old man, his jaw clamped shut and his head pinned, gagged as he tried to cry out. Olaf turned him with unstoppable force and then drove his shoulders downward as he dropped violently at the knees.

  The old man’s forehead smacked with a sickening crunch across the top of the open driver’s door. Olaf felt the brittle bones of the neck snap like dry twigs as he caught the old man’s corpse and lifted him bodily into the car and shoved him into the passenger seat. Carefully, Olaf placed the seatbelt across him to keep the body upright as though he were caring for an elderly friend, and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Olaf closed the door and reached into the old man’s pockets, fumbling around until he found the keys to the Polara.

  He started the engine and reversed out of the parking slot.

  Now, all he had to do was wait for Macy Lieberman to leave the courthouse.

  26

  [FLORIDA STRAITS]

  June 28, 11:27

  Ethan broke the surface of the water alongside the Free Spirit’s hull, just in time to see a ragged line of bullet holes burst through it and spray fiberglass chips into the water around him. Lopez came up beside Ethan.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?!’ she shouted as she pulled her respirator out.

  Ethan saw a sleek speedboat roar past nearby, its powerful wake tossing him about on the waves.

  ‘Get aboard!’ Ethan hollered back, shoving her toward the Free Spirit’s stern ramp.

  Lopez swam to the ramp just as Doug Jarvis appeared and reached out for her hand. He hauled her aboard with surprising strength before reaching out for Ethan. Ethan dragged himself up out of the water just as a deafening rattle of gunfire crackled out from the bridge.

  Scott Bryson was on one knee against the port rail beside the wheelhouse, an automatic rifle pulled tightly into his right shoulder as he fired short, controlled bursts at the speedboat circling back toward them. As Ethan yanked off his diving equipment he saw the shots fall close around the speedboat’s hull, keeping it at bay.

  ‘Who the hell are they?’ Lopez shouted.

  Jarvis hauled the heavy oxygen cylinders off her back.

  ‘More to the point, who do they think we are, and how did they know that we’d be here?’

  From the bridge, Scott Bryson bellowed down at them.

  ‘How about we have this goddamned chat later and concentrate on staying alive?’ The captain turned and tossed the rifle toward Ethan. ‘Keep them off our ass!’

  Ethan caught the rifle as Bryson leapt up into the wheelhouse and threw the boat’s throttles open. The Free Spirit surged forward and sent Ethan reeling as he struggled to keep his balance.

  ‘Incoming!’

  Ethan heard Lopez’s cry of alarm and saw the speedboat rushing toward their port hull at full throttle, two men with rifles aiming in his direction.

  ‘Get down!’

  Ethan hurled himself flat onto the deck, his fingers instinctively finding the safety catch and trigger with the same fluidity he had once possessed as a marine fighting in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora caves. The weapon came up into his shoulder even as he saw the first burst of muzzle flash from their attackers’ weapons and a lethal hail of automatic fire sprayed across the boat’s deck. Ethan, enveloped in a bubble of adrenaline-fuelled silence, ignored the bullets that zipped and tore into the deck around him as he breathed slowly and took aim. A marine instructor’s words drifted unbidden through his mind.

  All the automatic fire in the world is useless against one well-placed round. Shoot slow, son, and you’ll shoot sure.

  The shooter raked the Free Spirit as the speedboat turned away at the last moment amid crashing surf and shining metal. Ethan’s breathing stopped for a single second as he squeezed the trigger once.

  The round hit the shooter low in his belly as the speedboat raced past and bounced on the churning waves. Ethan saw the man’s mouth gape open in shock as he folded over at the waist, his legs crumpled beneath him, and he tumbled back into the speedboat.

  Ethan looked over the barrel of the rifle and saw at least four other men in the rear of the vessel. He turned to Jarvis.

  ‘We’re going to need help!’

  The old man already had a cellphone in his hand and was shouting into it as he sheltered close to the wheelhouse.

  Scott Bryson shouted down at Ethan from the bridge.

  ‘Nice shooting, boy scout! Now they’ll be really pissed!’

  Ethan stood up and rushed to the bridge, keeping
one eye on the speedboat as it circled out for another pass. The adrenaline was now pumping through his veins like a freight train powering through the night as he leapt up the steps two at a time and pointed at their attackers.

  ‘Turn the boat around,’ he ordered Bryson. ‘Head straight for them.’

  ‘Like hell, son, this boat’s my livelihood.’

  ‘We sure as hell can’t outrun them,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘And your livelihood’s no good to you if you’re dead.’

  ‘We can’t outshoot them, either,’ Bryson pointed out. ‘And you’re not Jack goddamned Bauer, so what’s the point of going down in a blaze of glory?!’

  Ethan glanced out of the bridge windows to see the speedboat racing toward them again.

  ‘You of all people should remember what you were taught in the SEALs,’ he said. ‘Defense and offense. When attacked by a superior force, you do the last thing that they expect.’

  Scott Bryson looked down at him for a long moment, and then for the first time he smiled at Ethan.

  ‘You advance on their position.’

  With a flourish, Bryson span the wheel and the Free Spirit heeled gamely over, turning to face the speedboat until they were on a head-on collision course.

  ‘Take them down the left side!’ Ethan shouted as he jumped back down to the deck.

  Ethan ran low to the stern of the boat, sliding onto his belly and aiming across the port stern. A crackle of gunfire snapped across the wind as he slowed his breathing. The speedboat soared past, two men firing their weapons from the hip with aimless abandon in the hopes of catching a lucky hit. A salvo of bullets splintered the hull close to Ethan’s shoulder and showered him with debris.

  As the boat thundered by, Ethan aimed at one of the shooters, taking advantage of the low-aspect movement now that the speedboat was moving almost directly away from him. Despite the pitching of the boats across the waves, the target was easier to track. Ethan held his breath and fired two rounds, double-tapping the trigger as he aimed for the man’s torso.

  The first round missed, hitting the deck low and to the man’s left, but the second round hit him straight through the neck, a fine mist of blood spraying into the wind as the man was hurled backwards to sprawl on the deck in a tangle of writhing limbs and spilling blood.

  Ethan rolled over and shouted to Bryson above the wind.

  ‘Turn her around!’

  Bryson responded without argument this time, the Free Spirit wheeling around on the churning surface of the ocean as she chugged her way toward their attackers.

  Lopez struggled across the heaving deck and hurled herself down alongside Ethan.

  ‘We can’t keep this up forever,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later one of us is going to get hit.’

  Ethan nodded and looked at Jarvis, who was huddled down behind a bulwark alongside the pressure suit, as he held a hand to one ear and his cellphone to the other.

  ‘We’ve got to hang on until he gets the cavalry here.’

  Lopez nodded and then clapped Ethan’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ve got an idea, be ready to shoot again.’

  Lopez staggered across the heaving deck as a wall of spray hissed over the boat’s bows. Bryson had aimed directly for the speedboat this time, and the psychological effect of their actions was already forcing their enemy to hang back and circle beyond weapons range.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ Bryson shouted, as the speedboat suddenly turned hard into them and rushed head-on once again.

  ‘Bring them down the starboard side!’ Ethan heard Lopez shout to the captain.

  Ethan shifted his position slightly as he heard the speedboat’s powerful engines growling and the familiar rattle of gunfire as the men aboard opened up once again. Ethan risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw Lopez hefting an oxygen cylinder onto her shoulder as she balanced against the pitch and roll of the deck.

  The speedboat thundered by and hurled a wall of spray up against the Free Spirit as Lopez took two paces forward and threw the oxygen cylinder in a graceful arc across the open water. She crouched down on the deck with her hands over her head as bullets hammered the deck around her.

  The silvery cylinder slammed into the back of the speedboat, crashing through the legs of one of the shooters and flipping him over onto his back. As the speedboat turned away Ethan aimed once again and fired three shots at the cylinder. The second shot hit it even as he pulled the trigger and let fly the third round, and the cylinder wall ruptured. A blast of high-pressure oxygen burst out with the force of a jet engine’s exhaust and the heavy cylinder flew across the speedboat’s deck and smashed into the back of the pilot’s legs, shattering them with a metallic clang that Ethan could hear even above the Free Spirit’s laboring engines. The cylinder spiraled crazily across the speedboat’s deck as the pilot collapsed in agony, trailing a cloud of vapor as it crashed into the engines before shooting into the air and spiraling into the ocean thirty yards away.

  Ethan saw a thick cloud of black smoke billow from both of the speedboat’s engines as a limp body toppled over the taff-rail into the ocean in a tangle of flailing limbs. The speedboat began turning lazily in circles, its idling engines spitting flames that began to burn their way along the hull.

  ‘That’ll do,’ Ethan smiled grimly as he stood up.

  ‘We’re not out of trouble yet,’ Bryson called out.

  Ethan saw the big man pointing out toward the horizon, where two more speedboats raced toward them on an intercept course.

  27

  FLORIDA STRAITS, 14 MILES WEST OF SOUTH BIMINI

  ‘How much more ammunition do we have?’ Ethan shouted.

  Bryson yelled over his shoulder as he turned the Free Spirit toward the distant Florida coast.

  ‘None! I only carry the rifle to finish off big catches like sharks and marlin!’

  Ethan checked the weapon and saw only a single round remaining.

  The two speedboats turned in unison alongside the Free Spirit, and Ethan saw four men aboard each vessel, all aiming their weapons directly at him. He looked across at Jarvis, who had lowered his cellphone from his ear and was watching their attackers with an expression of disbelief.

  ‘Who the hell are these people?’ he called out.

  ‘I don’t suppose the Coastguard’s on its way?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Jarvis shouted back.

  Ethan stared at the speedboats and felt a lance of fear pierce his guts as he watched one of the gunmen lift what looked like a grenade in one hand, pulling the pin with the other and swinging his arm back to lob the weapon toward the Free Spirit.

  ‘Hard to starboard!’ Ethan yelled to Bryson.

  The captain span the wheel to the right, and as he did so a thunderous blast of noise blazed overhead. For a terrifying instant Ethan flinched against the expected shrapnel as the unseen grenade exploded around them, but then he saw a flash of metal above them in the sky and a sound like that of a playing card caught in the spinning spokes of a bicycle.

  An enormous fountain of white water erupted around the speedboats, a curtain of churned foam that zipped across the ocean at tremendous speed. Ethan saw both of the speedboats shudder as clouds of debris blasted into the air to spill onto the surface of the ocean, the gunmen and pilots torn apart like rag dolls. The grenade fell from the gunman’s hand to land alongside him in the speedboat.

  ‘Get down!’

  Ethan, Lopez and Jarvis dropped down as the grenade detonated and the speedboat lurched as its engines failed and its rudder was torn off in the blast. The stricken vessel collided instantly with the other speedboat, smashing through the hull and splitting the second vessel in half. The two boats flipped up into the air and crashed back down onto the surface of the ocean amid a churning cloud of foam.

  Ethan craned his head up and spotted a pair of F-15E Eagles turning sharply across the blue sky, bright white vortices trailing from their wingtips. He looked across at Jarvis, who shrugged as he brushed himself down.


  ‘Why call the Coastguard when you’ve got the Air Force on the line?’

  Ethan got to his feet, steadying himself on the deck as Bryson eased back on the throttles. Across the water, Ethan could see the two speedboats and the bodies of their attackers sinking rapidly beneath the waves, leaving only debris and an oily slick of spilled fuel floating on the surface.

  ‘Who were they?’ Lopez asked him, shaking chips of fiberglass from her hair.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. How deep is the water here?’ he asked Bryson.

  ‘Hundreds of fathoms now we’re off the sandbar,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll need the Navy to recover the boats. The bodies might float up after a few hours, provided they’re not eaten beforehand.’

  Ethan shook his head. Even if the bodies did survive scavengers, they’d likely be carried for miles by the currents and be lost far out to sea. He turned away and looked at the damaged deck of the Free Spirit. Bullets had hammered almost every spare inch of her. Ethan crouched down and ran his hand across the scarred surfaces until he found what he was looking for.

  ‘You got any sealable bags aboard?’ he asked the captain.

  Bryson turned to one of the deck lockers and lifted out a small polythene bag used to hold live bait in water. He handed the bag over, and Ethan grabbed his knife from its sheath on his diving suit. He probed into one of the jagged tears in the deck and prized from its depths the crumpled remains of a bullet. Jarvis watched as Ethan dropped the bullet into the bag.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ the old man asked.

  Ethan stood up and looked at the rolling ocean around them. There wasn’t a single other boat to be seen, nothing but endless sea and blue sky flecked with puffy white clouds. Lopez guessed his thoughts before he voiced them.

  ‘Something to do with Purcell?’ she suggested. ‘He wanted us to be here after all.’