Devil's Island

by David Leadbeater

  Squinting hard, he saw the big truck approaching sported a dreadful hood ornament. A wounded man. The Devil thought he recognized him as the leader of the Scavengers. He grinned.

  A fitting end.

  As it approached, the truck accelerated.

  So that was their plan. To be fair, the clansmen didn’t have many options. The Devil was reasonably confident the castle doors would hold . . . until a man rose in the back of the truck.

  “RPG!” someone shouted out.

  It wasn’t anything they hadn’t tried before. But this time the clans were desperate. And this time they were united.

  From the midst of the runners, two more men emerged carrying rocket launchers. As one, all three fired their grenades at the castle doors. The Devil and his men ducked, taking cover behind the heavy concrete walls. Explosions rocked the very foundations, making the ledge they stood on shudder and shake. Cracks appeared in the blocks in front of the Devil’s eyes. He could imagine that three grenades might buckle the doors. At worst, it would weaken them.

  The truck hit the gates too, strengthened cow-catcher and Scavenger leader at the front taking the brunt of the impact.

  There came a shrieking, grinding noise like nothing he had ever heard before. The Devil winced, rising just in time to see the rear of the truck bounce back. Windows had shattered, three men had been thrown clear and turned into ragged messes. The small army that followed stalled as it saw their plan hadn’t worked.

  The Devil grinned, raised his gun and signaled his men. “Kill everyone.”

  But the truck was still running, still active. The Devil couldn’t see what a jumbled mess his castle doors had become, even though they still blocked the entrance. The truck driver could. He backed up a hundred yards, revved the engine and then came again, spinning tires as he gave it everything he could.

  Bullets slammed down at the oncoming vehicle, shredding the top of the cab, the sides and what remained of the windshield. The driver jerked spasmodically, hit a dozen times. But the truck came on, smashing into the castle once more.

  This time it crashed right through the door and kept going into the courtyard before coming to a stop. The entire remaining force of the island’s clans followed it.

  The Devil joined his men in opening fire on them. His weapon, a Steyr AUG—as well as being lightweight and robust it offered a change of barrel and the option to attach a KCB-77 bayonet, an idea which the Devil loved—bucked in his hands as he unleashed a storm of lead.

  It seemed improper when his enemies fired back.

  He stood still for a moment, not quite believing it, but then allowed one of his men to drag him to cover. Below, in the courtyard, more men attacked the stalled truck and the clansmen that came in behind it, using it for cover. Bullets flew. He stared at the scene: the courtyard that encompassed the castle’s inner buildings, the open gate to the east that led to the docks, the beach and the ocean beyond.

  They needed to hold the clans here.

  “Fight!” he shouted. “Fight for everything you want. Either you sail from here today, or you die here today.”

  In a lull he heard more distant gunfire and turned his eye upward, toward the top of the mountain where the experiments ran free. Who was fighting up there? His experiments were feral, as untamed as nature’s most savage concoction. He was proud of them, despite their failures. He’d been trying to replicate the old CIA’s mind control program codenamed MKUltra, developing drugs that could be used in torture interrogations to weaken a subject through mind control.

  In the ’50s and ’60s the Scientific Intelligence Division and Special Operations Division were allegedly involved in uncounted illegal operations where they used unwitting US and Canadian test subjects to carry out undisclosed missions, manipulating people’s mental states by altering their brain functions, attained by special drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation and various forms of torture.

  The Devil had gone a long way to realizing the same ends before lack of money, the escape into the island of the clans, and private work had forced him to quit the program and unleash the monsters he had created. After that, they became legend.

  So, who was up on the mountain right now, fighting them? Could it be Mai Kitano and her team? Someone else?

  It doesn’t matter, the Devil thought, training his Steyr once more on the embattled men. My monsters will win. I created almost a hundred of them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Drake sat with his back to the trees that covered the north side of the mountain top, basking in the sunset. The island’s river rushed along below and to the left as they watched the remaining clans attack the castle.

  “It’s a complication,” Alicia said.

  “I think it’s time to head down,” Luther said. “We’ve been waiting up here for a while now. Just try the comms once more, Drake.”

  The Yorkshireman was already on it. “Static.” He tapped his ear. “The river must have knocked their earpieces out.”

  Mai leaned back. “I hope you’re not thinking of heading down through the cave system, my friends.”

  Both Karin and Dino made warning sounds.

  “Well, you made it out okay,” Alicia replied. “Can’t be too hard.”

  Luther shrugged his shoulders. “She had a whole lot of help from a whole lot of man.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” Mai muttered. “She’ll never stop.”

  Darkness stole across the land at a steady rate, eating fields and forests and every trace of the horizon to right and left. Gunfire erupted below. It was mostly for this reason that the SPEAR team didn’t hear the monsters that crept out of the trees behind them. It was also because they crawled on knees and elbows, staying low to the ground. It was because they were silent, their brains long since having lost the capacity to speak. It was because they snuck along like monstrous spiders, eyes wide and focused on their prey; blood-encrusted bodies as dark as the shadows that clung to them.

  Drake heard a noise. It struck him first as odd, because it came from in front, not behind. It came from the space underneath his boots.

  “Whoa,” he cried out, shocked.

  Faces loomed from below, climbing fast. First, he saw Dahl and then Molokai. He grinned widely, but then held his breath, hoping and willing four more figures would follow.

  They did. Dahl paused a step below, unable to keep the grin from spreading across his own face. “Taking a break are you, mate?”

  “Where have you been?” Drake complained. “You’ve missed the bloody battle.”

  “Not down there we haven’t.” Dahl accepted the proffered arm and pulled himself up. “They’re attacking the castle.”

  “Yeah, which means the ships too.” Drake hauled the big Swede over the edge as Molokai accepted Luther’s help further down the line. The two brothers were also smiling at each other, just happy to meet again while they were alive.

  “We gotta move.” Hayden raised her voice so that everyone heard. “Without ships, we’re swimming to Guam. Or Japan.”

  “Don’t really swim—” Dallas began, but then stopped speaking in shock as Dahl exploded past Drake.

  The Yorkshireman reared back in surprise, but then turned and bellowed out a warning. “Incoming!”

  The monsters howled as they crashed into the group at pace. It was all the SPEAR team could do to hold their ground. There was no margin for error since the edge of the cliff was at their backs. Hayden and Kinimaka were still below, clinging to the rock face, unsure whether they should continue to climb or start a descent.

  Drake didn’t have time to debate an escape plan. These new attackers had clearly been waiting for darkness to fall and were strong in number. He dropped a shoulder, leaned into an assault, then used the momentary confusion to grab his opponent by both shoulders, turn and fling him off the cliff.

  “Look out!” Kinimaka cried. “That almost hit me!”

  Drake looked down the line, saw Luther and Mai, Dino and Karin standing toe to
toe with their aggressors. Closer still were Alicia and Dahl, Kenzie and Molokai—the SPEAR team meeting every onslaught head on with the cliff’s edge at their heels.

  Wasn’t it always this way? Drake thought the strong, poignant image was very telling. He couldn’t remember a time when death hadn’t either been at their backs or in their faces.

  A snarling face filled his vision. A blood-smeared arm struck at his head. Drake caught it, drew his handgun and fired. The body collapsed. He fired again and again. They piled up before him. Still more scrambled over the top. He shot up into their faces. When an attacker jumped down uninjured, Drake smashed him in the face with a Kevlar-covered shoulder, breaking a nose, then used his military knife to end it quickly.

  Down the line, his colleagues fought. It wasn’t a fair fight. Their assailants could only trust to luck to beat such heavily armed opponents. But there were near misses—hair raising moments. Karin saved Dino from receiving a nasty bite to the back of the hand. Dino didn’t sound overly pleased about it. Luther and Molokai built up the biggest body count, using arms and fists as well as weapons. Dahl took time to haul both Hayden and Kinimaka up to safety.

  “Just in case the Yorkshire twat decides to throw anyone else at you,” he clarified for everyone’s sake.

  But they were still under pressure. Drake pushed through dead bodies to get a better view. The unfortunate attackers were spread out across the entire area. One launched a spear. It quivered as it flew. Kenzie pushed Dallas aside as it fell toward them, its sharpened point sinking deep into a corpse. Drake saw other spears being launched. Alicia was at his side now. Together they fired on the throwers, taking them down. Mai and Dahl were a step behind, trying to take out spearmen before they threw their weapons. Volleys of bullets crossed the mountain top. The darkness that enveloped them was almost complete, shot through with flourishes of gray.

  Five minutes later it was over. The SPEAR team produced flashlights and surveyed the scene.

  “We didn’t get them all,” Hayden said.

  “No,” Kenzie said. “Some of them still have the good sense to retreat.”

  “I think the nuke will be a blessing,” Kinimaka said, “to them.”

  “Cleansing fire,” Mai agreed.

  “Right,” Hayden spoke up. “To those rocks. If we climb over the first one to the right we should find an easy way down the mountain, all the way to the beach. It isn’t guarded because the Devil thought his monsters were enough.”

  “Who told you that?” Mai asked as they walked.

  “Tolley,” Hayden said. “Tolley told me that. A good man. Without his help we might not have survived this island.”

  They paused at the top of the first rock, looking down on the floodlit scene below. The courtyard crawled from end to end with men, fighting and screaming. Flashes of gunfire burst forth like random pyrotechnic displays. Men fought on the walls, on the ground and even on the beach. The docks were a melee of combat.

  “And we’re heading right on down into that?” Dallas asked.

  Dahl glanced at him. “It’s what we do.”

  “Yeah, man.” Alicia waved a hand. “This is just another day ending in Y for us.”

  “If we didn’t need one of those ships, or to rescue the prisoners, I’d pass,” Hayden affirmed. “But there’s no choice.”

  “Don’t forget disarming that bomb,” Dahl said.

  Minutes before, she’d called their own plane to come back and help. It was on its way. But everyone agreed that they couldn’t rely on an incoming rescue craft like they could rely on one sitting plainly at anchor below. Especially where a nuke was concerned.

  “Time for one last battle on this blasted Devil’s island,” Hayden said.

  Drake followed her down the mountain.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  The SPEAR team hurried along as fast as they dared. Drake felt energized by the fact that they were all together again. It didn’t matter that they were heading straight into another pitched battle.

  They had a plan.

  With a horizon marked by the ascending silver moon, and the splendid vista of the rolling ocean with its half dozen ships moored offshore, they approached the base of the mountain. It led them to the very rear of the Devil’s courtyard, where there was no fighting, only pitch-black shadow. The main area of combat was at the front and then spread out toward the beach.

  Hayden placed her pack on the floor. Many long hours had passed since they’d prepared for this mission. They’d used a bespoke CIA facility to do so, knowing something of what they were up against, and these days a military pack usually came complete with a mini Geiger counter. Hayden found it after just a few seconds of rummaging and switched it on.

  “This way.”

  The device screeched and whirred as she swept it from side to side. If the plutonium core had been exposed, it would leave a signature. The readings ran highest ahead. Hayden set off, flanked by Kinimaka and Molokai, weapons poised and at the ready. Back here, they were shielded by the keep, which stood between them and the battle, but that didn’t stop a Marauder from dashing around, spying them and getting shot for his troubles.

  Hayden stopped at the rear of the keep. “The reading jumps like crazy here. I gotta say—the bomb’s inside.”

  “And the bloody door’s around the front.” Alicia sighed. “I have to point out—our luck’s deserted us since the Sprite returned.”

  “Luck is still having your good health and beauty,” Mai said. “Or in your case—your health. And my skills to save your ass, of course.”

  “Oh, save me by finding the door.” Alicia made a face as she followed Drake around front.

  “It’s right in your ass, along with my boot,” Kenzie put in, saving Mai the job.

  Drake came around cautiously. Here, they were completely exposed. Dahl jumped to the keep’s tall wooden door and turned the handle, but to no avail. He took a moment to shoot the lock off. Drake and the others stayed as deep in shadow as possible, still covering the Swede as they assessed the chaos.

  Wide steel gates had been smashed and crushed, damaged almost beyond recognition. A truck stood several yards inside, its windows smashed and bloody, its front end and cabin bent out of shape. Bodies lay all around it, most bearing terrible wounds. Men fought hand to hand and ducked behind crates, oil drums, an old van, piles of timber and blocks, and another truck that clearly hadn’t moved for months. They traded bullets.

  Several clansmen broke from cover and sprinted for the gap that led to the docks and the beach. Two were shot in the back, but four ran through. A merc rose to give chase but was shot dead.

  Dahl shoulder-barged the door along with Molokai. Drake experienced deja-vu from their desperate escape attempt back at the Moulin Rouge. Both soldiers fell inside as the door gave way. Alicia followed.

  “Stand up boys,” she proclaimed. “No need to grovel.”

  The interior was an antechamber where a winding staircase led upward. A single door lay to the right. Hayden swept the Geiger counter around, stopping at the door.

  “In here.”

  “Wait,” Dahl said as they pressed forward. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to split up? We do have two missions before we head for the ships.”

  “He’s got a point,” Drake said. “So, who here can disarm a bomb?”

  “I’ve disarmed a nuke before,” Dahl said. “Back in New York.”

  “That was with a sledge hammer,” Drake said as Dallas’ eyes widened. “Anyone else?”

  “Me,” Molokai said. “I have some history with bombs.”

  Drake wondered at the wistful, sad face before looking to Kenzie, who was waving. “You too?”

  “Yeah, Dallas and I will go with them.”

  “We will?” Dallas wondered. “I don’t like—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You don’t like flying, sailing, rafting, swimming or playing with bombs. We get it.” Kenzie shoved him at Dahl. “Start walking.”

  Drake waited as Hayden handed Da
hl the Geiger counter. It didn’t feel right that they should part again so soon. A sudden flurry of bullets struck the building, lending sharper urgency to the dilemmas they had to overcome. He watched as Dahl opened the inner door and stepped through, the others just behind.

  He watched as they descended into the pitch-dark, hoping to locate a nuclear bomb.

  “I agree it’s a crappy situation,” Hayden said, turning away back to the outer door. “But it’s all we’ve got and it’s the right one.”

  Drake agreed. He waited as Luther, Karin and Dino first checked and then slipped back into the embattled courtyard. The compound where the prisoners were kept lay to their left as they exited the building, which now presented a new predicament.

  How could they cross the courtyard without getting shot?

  Alicia spoke up when he stated the question. “We do what we do best,” she said. “We cause total fucking chaos.”

  It sounded perfect to Drake.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Dahl raced down into darkness, treading the worn concrete steps as fast as he dared, desperate to find and stop the bomb. He had no idea what he’d find below, nor how well it would be guarded, but only darkness pooled ahead and, unless his enemies were equipped with night-vision, they would all be equally blind.

  Kenzie was a step behind, followed by Dallas and Molokai. The light they cast with their flashlights illuminated about four steps. Dahl followed a winding route down and down until he hit the very bottom.

  “I’m at the bottom,” he said.

  Quickly, they assembled and swept the room for enemies, but found none. Dahl wasn’t surprised. The Devil didn’t strike him as the trusting type.

  The Geiger counter was squealing so loudly that Dahl turned it off. The radiation level remained within acceptable levels, but it was moving closer to the red line. Molokai passed him to the right as his flashlight illuminated a niche in the wall.