Do Or Die (Surreal Blue Rogue Agent 1) (7 page)

Don’t
want to hang the little one and allow the bigger one to escape
.

His
mind sought to reason with his non-obliging nature. Viktor stared at the man
once more… Who the hell was he?

“Too
bad.” He looked up. “I really had hoped to catch a glimpse of Saturn’s rings
tonight. Ah…But I’m guessing that could still transpire. Things can all still
go well tonight.”

A
familiar tune filled the air, coming from the doorway behind the old man. The
lyrics were in Mandarin-
Gōng 
chē shàng de lún zi zhuàn ya zhuàn
-
but the nursery rhyme melody was familiar to
every creed and race on the planet.

Xin
made his appearance at the entrance, towering above the other Asian man. He
continued singing the children’s tune: “Oh the wheels of the bus go round and
round,” Xin stepped around the man, towards Viktor where he stood near his
wife. “Round and round, round and round, the wheels of the bus go round and
round, all the way home.”

Xin
looked at Viktor with an accusing glare. “How dare you wear silver around my
pups.” But Viktor’s eyes were all on the little man.

Now
they both stared at the small man, who grinned like the Cheshire cat, just
realizing he had the full attention of the crowd.

The
look on Viktor’s face was priceless, Xin thought. Without looking in Viktor’s direction,
he whispered to him, “One of yours?”

Highly
rhetorical
, Viktor mused silently. “Dr. Eli, I presume?”

The Asian
man lowered his head slightly. “For the man married to one of the top
information theorists in the world, you truly are slow, aren’t you?”

He
thinks himself to be very clever…

Viktor
then did the unconscionable; he chortled with irrepressible mirth. His burst of
laughter surprised the little man. Dr. Eli’s eyes narrowed on the billionaire
diplomat.

Viktor
slapped his face with his left hand. “You called. You called to ask after her.”
Viktor continued with his burst of laughter. He bowed and hugged his stomach as
though not able to contain his glee. uncontrollably

Xin
gave Viktor an incredulous look and staggered back. Both men were engrossed
thoroughly by Viktor’s unfathomable display. Amazingly, a long, thick silver
chain spewed forth from his mouth, landing with a loud clang on the floor.

Slowly,
a deeply composed Viktor righted himself. Looking at Dr. Eli with somber eyes,
he yanked on the chain, whose reach suddenly extended beneath the earth. The strength
of the pull caused the earth to break apart as more of the chain came above
ground. At the end of the chain a massive, silver, circular instrument escaped
the earth: a bear trap. The equipment jerked, sharp teeth clamping down on the
doctor’s legs.

“Argh!”
Dr. Eli’s face contorted in pure agony as the teeth of the bear trap bit into
his legs. Blood streamed out from exposed flesh and bone.

“Is
this
one of the scenarios you anticipated in your playbook, doctor?” 
Viktor wrapped the big anchor chain round his forearm.  The gesture caused Dr.
Eli to fall hard on the floor. If not for the brutal agony of the painful,
jagged teeth in his legs keeping him cognizant, the impact of the fall might
have knocked him out cold.

“Surely
now my actions have earned more than a vague interest from you?” A second coil
wrapped around Viktor’s forearm drew the doctor closer over the rubble of
displaced earth.

“Arrrrrhgh.”
Dr. Eli’s fingernails scraped against the bloody earth. His blood soaked into
his clothes as he was dragged. Dr. Eli gritted his teeth against the torturous,
overwhelming pain. “Mr. Maxcksmilli-“

“No-No.”
Viktor’s stare became less relaxed. “You don’t get to say my name. My name is
her name. You’ve scorned her trust, her honest faith in you. You’ve scorned my wife…”

I need
to keep him alive to catch the larger evil before it escapes.

“You
are too selfish.” Dr. Eli managed weakly heaving out each word on failed puffs
of breath. Saliva leaked over his gums and lips. “She is too valuable-you only
want to keep her for yourself.”

Oh, so
that
is what this is about…

Viktor
stilled. He thought fiercely as he felt Xin’s eyes on him. Studying him
quietly, wondering what the old man meant by that last statement: his very
last
statement.

“You’re
an evil whose existence cannot be tolerated out of necessity,” Viktor raged. He
reeled Dr. Eli to him like a fish caught on a hook.  Hell’s Embrace hummed,
waiting; sensing his master’s need for him in fight.

Dr.
Eli lay before him. Viktor raised his glowing club with purpose, his anger no
longer hidden, his face contorted with share hatred of the professor. “When I
am through with you, they will have to scrape you off the walls.”

“Not
before your wife.” Dr. Eli lifted his hand to reveal a small object that
resembled a silver pen,with a red, blinking light for a head.

Then
Viktor knew- he was too late. He heard the beeping coming from beneath the
gurney where his wife lay and witnessed a flashing of dull red light behind the
white sheet.

“Noooo!”
Viktor’s guttural outcry was drowned out by the blast from the bomb hidden
beneath the gurney.

Audrianna
shielded her eyes from the bright white light that had amassed suddenly before
her. The light flashed, enveloping her, and then quickly receded into the
distance until it was a remote speck on the horizon. She blinked. She was
surrounded by darkness but for the dull, glowing orb ahead.

The
space around seemed a void. The blackness was more encompassing than the
starless space of the cosmos.  She stood on a narrow platform of dry, yellowish
earth, leading  to the orb.  On either side, clear water lapped in sullen
waves. Barefoot, dressed only in a hospital gown, she walked to the glowing
center.

Her
feet felt leaden; her legs were cramped. But she knew she could not give up the
path she had chosen. Walking, the distance seemed limitless: then she was
there. She blinked and was before the orb. It emitted slivers of static
electricity that fizzled out less than five inches away from its fuzzy surface.

A low
sound reverberated from the glowing ball and bounced off the dark walls of the
dome she was in. The phenomenon stood suspended in midair over a cream-colored,
twisted pedestal that had thin, rough, curved groves carved into its winding
form. The pedestal was heavily smudged by the same yellow dirt as the plain
where it stood.  

Audrianna,
still dazed from sleep, looked at the glowing ball and raised her hand to touch
it. As she paused, her hand close, it hummed even louder.

A
calm, soothing, feminine voice softly spoke to her, “Don’t be afraid…step into
the light.”

Audrianna
still faltered in placing her hand in the mysterious light. Less than
semi-conscious, her wits offered a foreboding that aimed at deterring her from
causing herself harm. In that instant she felt a crushing clamp on her lifted
arm, making her more alarmed and wakeful. Stunned, she turned to look up at the
person who manhandled her.

She
stared up into the face of a towering, bald black man with ashen skin. He had
harsh, menacing features and gritted even, pearl-white teeth. He appeared to be
straining to push her delicate arm onto the glowing orb. His eyes showed
resolve, though, and with one strong push her hand landed in the glowing
structure. The light flashed and the white glow amassed and spread once again,
embracing them both. She screamed.  

“What the
fuck was that shit?” Mat balked. He was at the helm of the only commercial
helicopter on the island, with Lincoln beside him.  They flew north-east
towards the Aripo mountains,no longer flying low.. They witnessed a plume of
smoke shoot up in the distance, dissipating into the night sky.

The
lights of the city had faded behind them, and though there were a spattering of
households and squatter settlements in the area, the majority of the
mountainous zone was covered by tropical rainforest. Lincoln was afraid there
would be no way for the Special Weapons And Tactics (S.W.A.T.) team to make it
up the mountain in the Northern Range in time to stop the abductors from
transporting Audrianna to a second location.  

Out of
sheer habit, as a former Marine, Lincoln glanced down at the controls. But the
helicopter they maneuvered towards the scene had the basic flying equipment a
cockpit would need to function. There were no thermal imaging sensors for
navigation purposes.

Shit,
man! It’s a Beetle with a rotor blade and a tail fin stuck on it.  

 Lincoln
grew irritated that he was basically flying blind
with
a 360-degree
blind spot. He looked down at his smart phone; Audrianna’s location on his GPS
signaling app had gone dead. The direction had been at 0:200 when it vanished,
the direction of the explosion. Lincoln cursed, slamming his palm on his fist.
He squeezed Mat’s shoulder. “Balls to the wall, Coyote!”

Mat
jammed the pedal and eased the cyclic control stick to his right, flying towards
the fire that burned the dark-green forest at full speed.  

“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.”
the ringing in Viktor’s ears sounded like the emergency testing transmission on
a television. He couldn’t hear anything else.

He
squeezed his eyelids tightly closed.

Dr.
Eli…

Viktor’s
eyes popped open.
Dr. Eli,
he thought savagely. His eyes filled with
unimaginable rage. His veins burned with hatred. Viktor gripped his weapon in
his hand. He wanted to beat the old man within an inch of his life.

Viktor
felt a harsh nudge to the side of his head, where he lay on the floor in his
dimensional enclosure. He looked up at Xin. Viktor’s vision was still hazy from
being blown back by the impact of the blast. Xin nudged him again with the tip of
his shoe.

“Hey.”
Xin’s indifferent features looked down at him from what was, to him, a great
height. Almost mocking, he said, “We’d like out.”

To
Viktor it was pantomime. Unsure of his sight, hearing shot, Viktor shoved
himself off the floor of the dimensional chamber he had created earlier for
their entrance onto the scene. He had instantly pulled all his acquaintances
into the chamber with the detonation of the bomb.

Viktor
flexed his arm. Pointing Hell’s Embrace with authority, he fired a strong white
 blast at the black apse structure. The walls dispelled into black smoke until
they disappeared completely, revealing the white room his wife had been in once
more.

The
room, along with half the house, had been destroyed. Burnt rubble lay
everywhere. The dark night sky with its two moons shone brightly. Dr. Eli had
killed many of his allies with that detonation. There were burnt, shredded
limbs, stubs of incinerated flesh, everywhere.  The smell choked the lungs.

“Ahhh,
how nostalgic…I love the smell of burnt, raw flesh at sunset.” Xin might as
well have been talking with cotton balls in his mouth; all Viktor heard was
mumbled jargon. Viktor slapped his palm against his ear. Feeling a wet
substance, he rubbed his fingers and looked at his hand. Blood. His blood. His
wife…

Viktor
swiveled around and accounted for everyone he had come with. Payne was bent on
one knee as though genuflecting, Darksmith assessing the damage around him with
calm surveillance; the three teen cubs were all present, if a little worse for
wear. They were all disheveled, faces marred by anxiety, their bodies heaved
vigorously with exhaustion.

Viktor
shook his head, blinking profusely. The ringing finally stopped.

“ ‘Bout
time we retrieved your lover,” Xin mocked, looking out across the bluff. Viktor
walked over to him. He sighed with relief, his eyes welling up with tears as he
watched Audrianna staggering towards the bushes. She walked into the canopy of a
group leafy palms some three miles below, out of sight.

Viktor
gritted his teeth against the swell of emotions that burned within him. He
sucked in a deep breath and took a step off the bluff that supported the unique
building structure of the small brick house, sliding down the muddied path to
the foliage beneath.

Xin
drew the attention of the teen wolves with a wave of his hand and a nodforward
in the direction Viktor was headed, a silent command to follow. They all slid
down the slope towards the direction Audrianna had gone.

Payne
looked at Viktor, Xin, and the werewolves heading down the path; Darksmith
stood next to him. “Well,” he patted Darksmith on the back, “there goes my
ride. Let me know how it turns out.” Payne whipped around on his feet and
walked off in the opposite direction, into the darkness of the blown-away
building, into the open jungle.

Darksmith
looked in either direction; then, gritting his teeth, he stumbled down the path
in the direction of the other party.