“Yes, Drexler warned me it would explode.”
“How do I deactivate it?”
Paradis tilted his skull. The heart rate monitor bleeped crazily. “If I knew I would tell you. Please, my daughter…”
“How do I get inside the server room?” I said.
“The security is biometric,” Paradis replied. “Only my iris scan or Erik’s can open it.”
I opened a VOIP app. “Blind Angel? Can you find a network for a secure server on the westernmost side of level 3? I’m looking for a trigger of some sort.”
“I’m looking for it now,” the Hacker replied. “The encryption’s good.”
“Find it,” I ordered.
Paradis tilted his head back on a pillow. “You aren’t listening, Winter. You can’t enter the server room.”
“Yeah, I can,” I replied.
“How?”
I searched the bedside cabinet next to a bleeping heart rate monitor. It contained rows of heavy-duty painkillers – methadone, diamorphine and alfentanil. Once upon a time I’d see those and think it was time for party. I felt a buzz of excitement for a second.
“What are you doing?” said Paradis.
“Making the mother of all cocktails,” I replied, tearing open boxes of sterile water and hypodermic syringes. I nodded at a wheelchair in the corner of the room. “You’re coming with me to the server room. I need your irises, and I’m not sure cutting your head off is going to work.”
Paradis flinched as I tapped a vein in his clammy forearm. I gave him 30 milligrams of methadone, guessing if he was taking the stuff on a drip all day, he’d be super-tolerant. I removed the drips and monitors, plugging the holes in his body with medical tape. He weighed no more than a child as I lowered him into the wheelchair, a bag of organs and bones and greasy flesh.
“I’m still in a great deal of pain,” said Paradis matter-of-factly.
I handed him a syringe. “That’s a hundred-and-fifty milligrams of diamorphine. Euthanize after you open the server room if you want.”
He took the hypodermic. “Not until I speak with my daughter.”
Stashing Blind Angel’s computer and the rest of my stuff, I wheeled Paradis back into the antechamber. Head lolling, he groaned gently.
The two survivors from the Trieste cell stood guard. “Falkenrath said you could have your weapon back,” said Emile. He nodded at my MCX and holstered .45 lying on a couch. “He’s going to get your friends and bring them back here. He took the black American with him.”
“His name’s Fendt.”
“Whatever. When he came round he wanted to go in and see Paradis. Falkenrath wouldn’t let him. Paradis won’t talk to Americans.”
“What’s gonna happen to us, Winter?” said the other guy. He had a flat nose and a three-day beard, an MCX slung across his chest.
“This is Janko, he’s cool,” said Emile.
I offered my hand to Janko. “If you play ball, you’ll get back to Belgrade.”
Janko gripped my hand and nodded. Emile laughed. “Drexler said you wanted to kill everyone on The Firm. You had five million euros on your head.”
“I did want to kill everyone on The Firm. But shit changed.” I checked my MCX, reloaded it and re-holstered my .45. “If you think Drexler’s in a position to pay that contract, though, you can try.”
Emile held up his hands. “We have no interest in starting a fight with you, Winter. We didn’t know how crazy Drexler was, I promise. Besides, that evil bastard Bytchakov might be outside with a rifle. We’d never make it to the beach.”
“Yeah, Alex is doing work,” I replied.
“Where you taking Paradis?” said Janko.
“We’ve got an agreement,” I said, wheeling Paradis to the door. “Now, follow me. If anyone tries to stop us, kill them.”
“At last,” said Emile, “some orders I can understand.”
I pushed the wheelchair into the corridor, followed by the two Serbs. Carbines ready, they prowled down the corridor either side of me.
My earpiece hissed. “Winter, this is Alex. Copy?”
“This is Winter. What have you got?”
“Two RIBs hittin’ the beach. Northeast of the house. Looks like Drexler’s exfil team.”
“How many?”
“Eight men. Equipped for business.”
“Can you keep their heads down?” I asked.
Alex sniffed. “Hey, there’s only eight of ‘em.”
I checked Paradis’ pulse. It was weak. “What’s happening?” he whispered.
I hunkered down, face-to-face with the old man. “We’re having our own little war. Let’s hope we win.”
Chapter twenty-eight
Paradis’ wheelchair squeaked on polished wooden floors. Janko and Emile checked every door we passed, nudging them open with their carbines. I keyed my PRR. “Oz, Juliet, you hear me?” There was no reply, just the crackle of static. I turned to Emile. “Can you contact Falkenrath?”
“No, they took our phones, and our radios don’t work,” he replied.
War is always the fucking same: the radios don’t work.
Head lolling, Paradis pointed a spindly finger, “the server room is around the next corner.”
I put my finger to my lips. Peering around, it was clear. I could see a brushed metal door with a tell-tale scanner at eye-level.
“Cal?” It was Juliet, her voice faint in my earpiece. “We’re on the fourth level. Drexler’s up here. Falkenrath’s gone. Oz is…”
The signal cut out.
Shit.
“I’ve got to go,” I said to Emile, pushing open the nearest door. “I’ll be back. Just keep Paradis alive, I’ll make sure you get paid ten times whatever Drexler was offering.” That got their attention - a mercenary’s G-spot is easily located.
Emile grinned. “More orders I can understand.”
Reversing my route, I returned to the room Juliet and Oz had climbed from. I saw movement in my peripheral vision – a makeshift rope, flapping in the breeze outside. It was made of lengths of curtain knotted together. Juliet or Oz had improvised it, presumably to help Falkenrath and Fendt climb up.
Grabbing the rope, I scrambled out of the window and began heaving myself up. My boots slid on the rain-slicked metal, but I was able to gain a foothold on the oversized rivets screwed into the support beams. My shoulders burned with the effort of hauling my body-armoured bulk, but finally I gripped a smoke-blackened windowsill and clambered back inside. The room still smouldered from the rocket-strike, chunks of plaster and wood littering the floor. Outside, I heard gunfire in the near-distance, the metallic bark of an automatic weapon putting down suppressive fire.
Alex’s voice came over the net. “Cal you copy? Two tangos down.”
“You good?” I replied.
“For now.”
“Thanks Alex, I’ve got a plan.”
“I’m glad some motherfucker has.” There was another burst of gunfire. “Haul ass, Cal, whatever it is.”
Leaving the room, I entered another of the mansion’s spaceship-white corridors. The doors that were ajar led into luxurious bedrooms, blood dotting the carpets. Falkenrath staggered out of a doorway, closely followed by Fendt.
“Cal, get down,” Fendt hollered, sliding a fresh magazine into his carbine.
Falkenrath’s face evaporated. The bullet exited his cheek, hissing past my ear. The big German toppled, pinning me to the wall. Another round blew out his eye, spattering me with oily gore. Crazy stuff happens when bullets enter a body. They hit bone and zing off on a different trajectory. This one slammed into the ceiling, scattering plaster dust.
Drexler appeared at the end of the corridor, armed with a black assault rifle. He wore heavy armour, similar to the stuff bomb disposal techs wear. His helmet covered most of his face, multi-lensed optics perched on the rim like spider-eyes. I grabbed Falkenrath, a shield of muscle and flesh, and powered forward. Drexler fired another burst, the German absorbing the blast. Panting, I pushed the
corpse aside, bullets slamming into the wall next to me.
Fendt, crouched in a doorway, returned fire. Bullets spattered harmlessly across Drexler’s breast and shoulder armour. The human dreadnought side-stepped into cover. Fendt’s next volley tore through plasterboard and wood.
Fendt and I barrelled into a bedroom, incoming gunfire peppering the walls. I heard the metal-on-metal sound of a magazine change. I leopard-crawled to the CIA man, “give me your armour!”
The American shot me a look, but unstrapped it anyway. It was made up of front and rear ESAPI trauma plates, suspended in a heavy fabric carrier. Pulling the straps tight, I sandwiched the front and rear plates together and twisted my hand into the mesh of webbing straps.
Now I had a shield.
“Cover me!” Pushing the armour out in front of me, I stormed the corridor. Covering fire from Fendt’s MCX zipped past me. Drexler was waiting, an armoured sentinel, gunshots bouncing off his Kevlar-clad body. Muzzle flash lit the corridor, bullets thudding into my improvised shield.
Another clipped my calf, burning like fuck.
I hurled Fendt’s armour, the plate-carrier striking Drexler’s rifle. I drew my pistol and pumped two sense-of-direction shots into him, a .45 round bouncing off the curved plate protecting the American’s jaw. The second shot skittered across a gap in the armour on his wrist. Cursing, Drexler’s weapon clattered to the ground…
…and he was on me, breath sour-hot. He punched the pistol from my hand, his other fist smashing into my cheek. The rim of his helmet smacked into the bridge of my nose. I bounced off the wall, straight back into the chop of his hand. I fell, stunned, to the floor. Drexler scooped up his gun, optics gleaming as he took aim.
Fendt was behind me. “Cal, move!” he hollered, opening fire.
Yet more bullets thudded into Drexler’s torso and helmet, making him stagger. Taking a knee, he covered his face with an armoured forearm, bullets bouncing off Kevlar. Drexler fired the Kalashnikov one-handed, spewing white flame. Fendt juddered as he took the blast. The CIA man toppled to the floor, torso a bloody mess of bullet wounds. Drexler’s weapon was empty. His voice boomed, hoarse but triumphant, eyes gleaming in that crazy berserker face. “Your friends? All dead. All. Fucking. DEAD!”
And, deep inside my head, the monster stirred.
It lurks in the broken part of my brain, a chimera of bad genes and fucked-up chemistry. The part that stopped me ever being a better man. The perversion I needed to finish this thing. The sugar-rush realisation, that I was The Firm’s worst nightmare.
It’s finest creation.
I accepted the monster, hungry and desperate to kill. Drexler saw it in my eyes and I felt his fear. He plucked a curved magazine from a pouch as he ejected the old one. Good skills and drills, but not fast enough.
I wrenched the Silent Soldier from the cord around my neck. Woozy with pain, I sprung to my feet. Drexler’s rifle barrel brushed against my upper arm as he fired, muzzle flash singeing fabric and burning skin. I slashed at his throat. My blade bit into his breastplate, bounced off, sliced across his cheek.
Drexler manoeuvred his AK inside our tight arc of violence. Using my elbow, I flipped the barrel aside and stabbed his trigger-hand. The blade bit between the knuckle joints of his armoured gauntlet. Dropping the weapon, he head-butted me, pain star-bursting through my nose. “Join me,” he grunted. Monster-fire blazed in eyes crazy as mine. “It’s not too late. Blood and treasure, Winter!”
I hadn’t the breath for a reply. Only enough to punch him in the face.
We wore scarlet masks of blood, feet slipping in gore, hugging each other like drug-frenzied dancers. Drexler fell to a knee as I stabbed at him again. The tip of my knife pierced a gap in his armour, cutting his arm. My next thrust slid harmlessly across bullet-scarred plate. Drexler grabbed me by the collar and yanked me toward him, other hand clenching my wrist. He bit my arm, dragging his head back and forth like a pit-bull. I sawed at his hand, near-slicing off a finger. The American yelled and stopped biting, yanking the knife away. The blade bit deep into his palm, but his blood burned with battle-rage.
And still we fought, blow and counter-blow. Panting, grunting, crashing. We tumbled along the corridor, stumbling back into the shattered bedroom. The open window banged in the breeze. The walls were smeared with blood and soot, like a psychopathic art installation.
A scoped hunting rifle lay in the corner.
Drexler landed a kidney punch and tossed me aside. He lunged across the bed and scrabbled for the rifle. His body left a long red smear on the glass-strewn quilt. Muscles burning, I hauled myself back up, diving at the rifle. Drexler, snake-fast, whipped his elbow into my cheek. I staggered and fell on my backside, spitting out a tooth.
Drexler grabbed the rifle. A Mauser. A long weapon, clumsy.
“Cal!” Juliet stood in the doorway, bloodied and raw. Pistol raised, she fired, bullets tearing into Drexler’s helmet and shoulder plates. The American snatched the bolt-action Mauser’s trigger, the bullet tearing a scab from a bedstead. He reversed the weapon and swung the rifle at me, like a club.
Tossing her empty pistol aside, Juliet joined the melee. I staggered to my feet, a punch-drunk zombie. Drexler side-stepped, hitting Juliet in the chest with his rifle-butt. Grunting in pain, she drop-kicked him in the balls. Drexler put his head down and charged. I slid forward and seized his ankle, both of us tumbling. The American’s bulky armour was a disadvantage on the floor, Drexler squirming like an upended beetle.
Juliet grabbed something, wrapping her free arm around Drexler’s neck. The improvised rope, flapping in the wind. Driving her knee into his groin, she looped the fabric around his neck. “Push, Cal,” she gasped… “window.”
Drexler roared with fury, a creature cornered by wolves. I hammered his face with my fists as Juliet looped curtain-rope around his neck, wrapping his chin and mouth. Staggering to my feet, I boot-stomped Drexler’s chest, sternum crunching under armoured plate. He convulsed, like a shark in a fishing net, as we barged him towards the window. Juliet, scarlet-faced, grabbed his flailing legs.
I didn’t have the breath to curse or gloat.
We bundled Colonel Erik Drexler out of the window, with fists and knees and feet. He flailed for the windowsill, eyes indignant. He toppled, an armoured deadweight, the makeshift rope snapping his neck. The American dangled for a moment, like a parachutist stuck in a tree, then tumbled free. His body bounced off steel supports, crashing to the paving stones below.
Juliet collapsed on the bed. Her eye was swollen, blood smeared across her face. She looked savage. A shield-maiden. Gabbling and breathless, I told her about Paradis and the EMP device. About the assault team coming to exfiltrate Drexler. She shook her head. “Okay, but we need to get Oz.”
“Where is he?”
“Follow me,” she said. “Drexler stabbed him. I led him away, but my pistol was no use. That bloody armour was impenetrable. Then the German guy and Fendt arrived. Drexler must have hid and waited to ambush us.”
Oz lay in a bathroom, along another of the mansion’s winding corridors. Grey-faced, he held a bloodied mess of towels and field dressings across his belly. A blood-spattered bayonet lay on the ground next to him. “Cal. Never thought I’d be pleased to see you,” he wheezed.
Tugging a field dressing from a pouch, I knelt next to my friend. Oz coughed blood. “Worst game of hide and seek I’ve ever played. Drexler’s a hard bastard, I’ll give him that.”
I put my hand on Oz’s head. It was cold. “He was a hard bastard,” I said, “until Juliet killed him.”
“Good effort, Jools,” Oz replied, clutching the towel. “Fuck this hurts.”
I reached into an ammo pouch and pulled out a syringe barrel and needle. “Diamorphine,” I said, rolling up the sleeve of his blood-stained smock.
Juliet wrinkled her nose. “Diamorphine?”
I was too tired to lie. “I took it from Paradis. In case I needed a one-man party.” I slid the hypodermic needle into
Oz’s arm. “This’ll make you feel better. Trust me.”
“Trusting you is what got me into this shit in the first place,” said Oz.
Combat first aid is all about improvisation. I tugged a length of duct-tape from a pouch and wrapped it around the dressings holding Oz’s guts in place. The gunfire outside intensified. “Did you hear Alex on the radio?” I said.
“A little,” Oz replied, sighing as the opiate hit his bloodstream. “How many tangoes out there?”
“Six, at the last count,” I replied. “Alex is still out there.”
Oz smiled woozily, eyes rolling. “Man, this is awesome shit.”
“Let’s go mate,” I said, draping his arm across my shoulder.
“Pray he makes it,” said Juliet.
“I am. He’s the nearest thing I’ve got to family.”
Juliet stood. Bedraggled and bloodied, but beautiful to me. She took my hand, hot and blood-wet. “No he isn’t. Now, let’s finish this thing.”
Chapter twenty-nine
Blind Angel finished hacking the security network, unlocking the mansion’s doors. Juliet, Oz and I made our way back to the surviving members of the Trieste Cell.
“Drexler’s dead,” I said.
Emile and Janko nodded. Paradis sat slumped in his wheelchair, clutching the armrests with whitened fingers.
“His men are outside,” I continued. “I’ve got Bytchakov covering us, but no one else. Will you help?”
Janko nodded. “Falkenrath had another long rifle. I can spot for Emile, he’s the better shot.”
Emile rubbed his chin. “Yes. Maybe we go on the roof and stop them getting too close.”
“Do it,” said Juliet. She took her PRR and handed it to the Serb. “Call Alex on that, if you can get a signal.”
Emile checked his carbine and nodded. “Remember our deal,” he said over his shoulder. “You owe us half-a-million US dollars each.”
The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3) Page 22