Arcadian Genesis (9 page)
Borshov shrugged. He signaled for his squad to hold their positions.
Alex was now within ten feet of the man, who was even more imposing up close. He’d worked with plenty of big men, and he was six two himself, but the build of the Russian was like a cross between a human and a grizzly. Alex tensed his muscles and turned as if to check on the Spetsnaz behind him.
Borshov laughed deep in his chest. ‘Don’t be scared; they won’t —’
Alex spun back fast, using the momentum and all his strength to fling the hundred-pound canister at Borshov. At the same time he yelled: ‘Now!’
Stozer took off like a deer, jinking and weaving, flying past Borshov as the canister crashed into his chest. Caught off guard, the impact staggered him momentarily. Alex took his chance: rushing forward, he rained hard-edged blows on the Russian’s broad face. The huge arms blocked his last few punches, but in that short window, his pummeling had split Borshov’s cheek and flattened his nose.
Stepping back, Borshov reached into his mouth and fiddled with a tooth. It came away in his fingers. He pulled a face. ‘Not so pretty now, da?’ He grinned a bloody grin and wagged his finger. ‘I will kill you slowly, little dog. If you are best America can offer, I think soon we will march down your Times Square.’
Alex glanced about warily as more and more Spetsnaz broke cover and circled the two combatants. With every passing moment, Stozer was getting farther away, but he had to keep them busy, make a fight of it. This guy had taken down Bruda, so there was no way
he
was going to outmuscle him. He had to rely on his speed . . . That was probably the only advantage he had.
Moving forward, Borshov feinted to his left, but instead of circling in the opposite direction, Alex lunged at him. Landing a flat-handed strike under Borshov’s chin, he ducked under the Russian’s swinging arms, delivering a side kick to the back of his knee. But the big man didn’t go down; instead, as momentum carried Alex through, one of Borshov’s fists slammed into his kidneys, the other catching him just above the eye.
The pain in his side was excruciating, and Alex could feel the trickle of blood from the cut that had opened on his brow. The eye would soon start to close. He staggered back a few steps, trying to clear his head.
Borshov laughed dismissively at his unsteadiness. ‘Good punch, da? I boxer once – Borshov the Beast they called me.’ He grinned again, and held his big fists up, circling them in the air.
Alex shook blood from his eye and moved sideways as a shout rang out from the corner.
Alex’s fists fell by his sides; Sam Stozer was being led back into the street, her hands bound behind her back, her face horribly torn and battered. She shook her head at him, and mouthed a word – it might have been
sorry
.
It might have been
goodbye
.
Borshov shouted something in Russian to her captors, and the big man threw back his head and laughed. He turned and pointed at Alex. ‘You get to live a minute longer. First we decorate the street.’
The men brought rope and made a noose at one end, throwing the other up over a power pole. They lowered the noose over Stozer’s head.
Alex needed to buy some time – they must want something from him. He knew their modus operandi – they’d use Stozer as leverage; make demands. He wiped blood from his eye with the back of his hand. ‘What is it you want?’
Stozer continued to stare at him – no fear, no tears. The men pulled and she lifted off the ground.
‘No!’ Overwhelmed with impotent fury, Alex drew his longest K-bar and rushed the big man. It was a tactical error, one he’d never have made normally. Easily avoiding him, Borshov drew his own blade and drove it through Alex’s armor, deep into his side.
Alex tasted blood. He hit the ground, hard, immediately followed by Borshov’s boot, which came in fast, crunching into his chest. Things went black for a few seconds. When his vision cleared, he saw Stozer’s legs dancing like those of a wild marionette, and a wet gargling came from her mouth. Her face quickly turned blue and her tongue seemed to fatten as it protruded. Alex watched in horror – there was no dignity in being hanged.
Then it was over.
Borshov shrugged and glanced up at the swinging woman. ‘Too bad – she looked like good fuck.’ One of the Spetsnaz tossed him his large GSh-18, and he checked it as he strode toward Alex, sprawled on the ground. The Spetsnaz laughed and jeered.
I failed
, Alex thought miserably. He looked at Stozer’s lifeless body, then turned away as her face swung toward him. ‘Get it over with!’ he yelled.
But the big Russian shook his head. ‘Patience, comrade. First I blow off left foot, then the right. Then left hand . . . ’ He grinned. ‘You ever seen man crawl without his hands and feet? Very funny thing.’
Alex gritted his teeth. In one hand he still held his K-bar; his other hand edged toward the lead canister lying on the ground beside him.
Borshov, satisfied with his gun, raised it and pointed it at Alex’s face.
A sound from the forest made the big Russian frown. It was like a breeze kicking up, but localized in one small area behind the tree line. One of the Spetsnaz shouted something, and Borshov turned. Alex took this last opportunity and threw his knife – it buried itself several inches deep into the meat of the giant’s thigh. Borshov cried out in pain and surprise, but his gun barrel remained steady. He squeezed the trigger.
With his last ounce of strength, Alex grabbed up the canister and held it out in front of him. The bullet tore through its inches of lead, splintering on the glowing disk inside. When a much smaller bullet fragment burst through the other side, it was now coated with a fine powder of luminescent fragments.
A bullet from the massively powerful gun, fired at such short range, would normally have shattered a man’s skull. Now, it retained just enough mass and velocity to punch a hole just above Alex’s left eye, into his brain.
***
Blue sky, crashing waves, salt drying on warm skin. And a girl with long brown hair that smelled of green apples . . .
. . . Then a whirlpool of darkness.
CHAPTER 12
The almost invisible black chopper came up over the tree line and its rotating cannon sprayed the street below. Spetsnaz agents flew in every direction, fist-sized holes opening in their bodies. In a matter of seconds, the street was cleared.
The chopper landed and a figure jumped out, his suit dappling as he passed under streetlights, through pools of darkness. Another remained with the cannon, watching.
The one on the street cut down Stozer’s body. After a quick examination, he simply slid back the tiny cover plate on her chest and let the suit take care of her remains. Bruda and Kolchek went the same way. Checking Johnson, he gave a thumbs-up, and dragged him back to the chopper.
He sprinted over to Alex. The HAWC lay still, and a pool of blood surrounded his head like a dark, glistening halo. The figure laid two fingers lightly against his neck.
With his other hand, he pressed the stud in his ear. ‘It’s Hunter . . . I’ve got a weak pulse. Probably won’t make it, though – head shot.’
He waited. After a few moments, the instructions came back.
‘It’s Hammerson: he wants him – dead or alive.’
CHAPTER 13
Jack Hammerson sat in his darkened office, the only illumination coming from the screen on the desk in front of him. The display showed only two weak life-sign signatures, one almost nonexistent – vegetative. Its blinking lights whispered:
mission failure
, over and over. Deleting the project files, he switched off the computer.
He remained, unmoving, in the dark. His body could have been carved from stone. As if finally remembering he needed to, he drew in a long, slow breath, then switched on his desk lamp. He picked up the folder and flipped it open.
Arcadian Project – human trials not yet authorized
.
Closing his eyes, he sorted through his options. He thought of his promise to Jim Hunter all those years ago. But if he could have brought
him
back,
then
. . . Who knows how things might have turned out?
Sorry, Hunter – some of us were made for war
. He’d decided. Hammerson picked up the phone.
‘It’s me . . . Ready the lab. I’ve got someone for you.’
Greig Beck grew up across the road from Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. His early days were spent surfing, sunbaking and reading science fiction on the sand. He then went on to study computer science, immersed himself in the financial software industry and later received an MBA. Greig is the director of a software company but still finds time to write and surf. He lives in Sydney, with his wife, son and an enormous black German shepherd.
Alex Hunter Series
Beneath the Dark Ice
Dark Rising
This Green Hell
Black Mountain
(coming December 2012)
The Valkeryn Chronicles
BLACK MOUNTAIN
BY GREIG BECK
The creature screamed as the arrow punched into its neck. Ripping it free, it turned to roar in frustration. The wound was deep and bled heavily, but the sticky blood quickly froze on its coarse, blunt fingers. The small ones were coming fast, sending more of their arrows flying through the air. The creature roared again, wanting to rush back and fight, to crush those small, loud man-things down to nothing. But that would mean its own death, and then the end of all of them. There were now barely forty members of the group remaining, and some with young; they would be slaughtered. The leader snorted and drew its clan higher, moving quickly now. When it looked back briefly, the man-things were a crawling multitude that whooped and ran and hurled their sharp sticks.
The time for peaceful coexistence had long since passed. The creature looked to the sky – cold, iron grey with heavy cloud down to the peak – then it grunted, calling the group. There was one place they could go, where they could defend themselves and save their young. The deep, wintering cave that they used for hibernation when the season was unusually long and cold. Down there, deep inside the mountain, where the lichens glowed green and things slid and wormed their way in the darkness, there was safety. Deeper still there was a black river, with pale, sightless things swimming within it – food. The leader urged the group to greater speed, forcing them on, higher up the mountain, along the old pathways, steep and narrow tracks on the cliff edge that fell away to a depth so great its end was invisible in the heavy mist. Up, up, and into the cave, through the small and narrow opening, into the inner world of the mountain. There was no way out, but they could wait. If the man-things followed them in, then they would have to fight; they’d done it before. The small ones wanted their heads as trophies. If they came into the dark, then their heads would be taken.
Deep in the dark they waited, the large adult bodies pressed to the front, the young behind, all breathing heavily, fear sharp and acrid in the air around them. And then the man-things came, but just to the mouth of the cave, throwing fire inside. The great beasts waited still, but instead of an attack, there came a scraping, grinding and pounding noise, over and over. Then, to the creatures’ horror, the light from outside began to diminish. A mighty wall rose up before them, stone by stone. The adults screamed in rage and surged forward, but were answered with more fire and stinging arrows. They fell back, pounding the ground, their rage loud but impotent as large, interlocking blocks continued to be piled and fixed in place, until the last square of light was blotted out. Still the sounds continued as many more layers were added.
Finally, there was silence, save for the heavy breaths of the creatures themselves. The leader shuffled forward and rested a large and bloody hand against the stone – it could sense the many thick layers and doubted they could break
through. It also sensed the man-things on the other side, waiting for them to try. It turned back to its clan, a decision forming in its mind. There was food, and there would be weak light from the lichens in the deeper caves below. They could survive. They would wait, and eventually their world would be given back to them. They had walked its surface before the man-things had arrived, and they would walk it again.
Charles Albert Schroder paused at the bustling intersection. He knew the main streets were too easily picked over, and it was down the secretive side alleys that he had navigated this day. Being a head taller than the milling crowd, he should be able to spot the type of shop he was searching for without too much trouble. There – the double Chinese symbols for medicine hung from a shingle out the front of a dark cramped space that emanated the mixed odours of a thousand exotic herbs, fungi and dried animal carcasses.
Schroder watched the doorway for a while. The clientele were a mix of older men, presumably seeking remedies for ailing potency, or young women looking for an elixir to turn a rich man’s head. Each left with a small package wrapped in rice paper and stamped with the shop owner’s symbol.
Schroder ducked his head as he stepped inside, and blinked a few times to try to adjust his eyes to the gloom of the interior. An ancient Chinese man stood behind a counter, staring at him with a rheumy gaze and resting a pair of reptilian hands on the counter top. Behind him, the wall was completely covered in wooden slots holding powder-filled jars or tiny drawers that were undoubtedly filled with exotic wares. Schroder quickly looked left and right, making sure he was alone with the man. The only other gaze he detected belonged to milky eyes of a monkey’s head suspended in a jar of yellow fluid.
