PRIMAL Fury (The PRIMAL Series) (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

Aleks’s distraction worked exactly as planned. The two five-gallon gas cans exploded, turning night into day and drawing every set of eyes in the compound to the ball of fire rolling into the sky.

He touched another icon on his iPRIMAL smartphone, setting off two demolition charges. One, prepositioned on the power lines, knocked out the electricity to the building, plunging it into darkness. The other was a frame charge he had placed across the stone wall that surrounded the compound. An avalanche of rock and dust was thrown inward by the violent blast, leaving a door-size gap in the barrier.

As soon as the debris hit the ground Kurtz hefted a MATADOR breaching weapon onto his shoulder and thumbed the trigger. The rocket shot through the newly made gap, across thirty meters of lawn, and slammed into the ancient manor. Its detonation blew a gaping hole in the building.

Kurtz moved through the breach first, his suppressed KRISS submachine gun firmly at his shoulder. He wore jeans and a shirt, his chest covered by an armor plate carrier. His head was encased in a ballistic helmet and attached to it was a pair of the latest-generation multispectral night vision goggles.

Aleks followed in similar attire but carrying a short-barreled version of the heavier-hitting HK417 assault rifle. They moved swiftly through the darkness to the manor. At the front of the compound they could hear men yelling.

The fuel fire at the front gate continued to burn, blowing a thick, acrid smoke across the entire estate. The syndicate’s gunmen were going to struggle to see in the dark, let alone through the thick smoke. No such problem for the two PRIMAL operatives: Their goggles displayed a thermal image unhindered by smoke or dust.

Three heat signatures rounded the corner of the manor, two armed men and a dog. The two men moved cautiously, blind without night vision equipment. Aleks lined up his laser and dropped them with a series of suppressed shots from his 417.

The dog was on them a split second later. Snarling, it leaped, fangs bared. Kurtz lifted his arm to protect his throat and the animal clamped onto it. There was a loud snap followed by a bright-blue spark, and the canine dropped to the ground, turned tail, and ran into the darkness yelping hysterically.

“What do you know, it worked!” Having been warned about the dogs by Aurelia, Kurtz had donned a carbon-fiber arm guard with an integrated Taser circuit designed and built by PRIMAL’s resident scientist. Tonight had been its first field test.

As they closed in on the two-story manor, Aleks threw a stun grenade through the hole Kurtz had blasted with the rocket launcher. It detonated with an ear-bleeding bang.

Kurtz ducked through the entry point. As he stepped over a body, bright muzzle flashes confronted him and rounds sparked off the walls. Kurtz triggered his laser designator and the KRISS submachine gun sent a stream of heavy slugs down the corridor. The torrent of lead shredded the gunman, smearing his blood across the hall.

Kurtz covered the corridor as his partner came through the breach. Moving in practiced unison they worked their way to the first doorway. It was open and Kurtz led, his more compact submachine gun easier to maneuver in the tight space. He identified three unarmed people in the room as well as the heat signature from a cooktop and ovens. It was the kitchen.

“Three nonhostiles,” he whispered into his throat mike.

Aleks was already approaching them. “Get down on the floor; we will not hurt you,” he said in English.

It was pitch black in the room and his voice startled the three people. Two dropped to the ground but one of them lunged toward him with a knife. Aleks blocked the blow with his weapon and kicked the assailant across the kitchen. Kurtz finished him off by smashing his KRISS into the side of the man’s head, knocking him unconscious. He zip-tied his hands and left him on the floor.

The two remaining staff were terrified. They could see nothing in the darkness, although the noises told the story clear enough.

“Ask them where she is,” Kurtz whispered.

Aleks asked in English, then in Russian.

A terrified kitchen hand answered: “In the cellar, end of the hall next to the stairs.”

As Kurtz was leaving the room he saw the beam of a flashlight flickering down the corridor. He jumped backward into the kitchen as a hail of gunfire blew shards of stone across the doorway. Calmly he pulled a high-explosive grenade from his vest and flicked it down the hall, sending it skidding along the wooden floorboards.

Terrified yells filled the air.

The grenade detonated with an explosion that shook the walls. Kurtz waited a moment before surveying the damage. It was carnage; two bodies lay crumpled on the floor and a third man was dragging himself away, legs shattered and bleeding. Kurtz put a single shot through the back of the wounded man’s head.

They reached the staircase at the end of the hall. Aleks covered the stairs to the next floor. An AK fired blindly from the upper landing and Aleks responded with a burst of his own.

“I’ll hold them off, you go get the girl.”

Kurtz pushed open the cellar door with his boot. A volley of fire greeted him. He waited as the rounds thudded into the heavy wood. One of the bullets struck the side of his helmet, snapping his head back.

“Son of a bitch!”

“You all good?” asked Aleks as he unleashed another burst of fire into the landing above.

The answer came as Kurtz lobbed a distraction grenade into the cellar. The gunmen fired blindly for a moment, then Kurtz stormed down the stairs, firing his KRISS as he went. A torrent of 230-grain projectiles tore through an upturned table, leaving the two gunmen crouched behind it ripped to shreds.

When Kurtz reached the bottom of the staircase a flash of white light overwhelmed his goggles. Something smashed into his weapon, sending it flying across the room. Another blow slammed his NVGs into his eye sockets.

Kurtz desperately raised an arm to protect himself as his master hand reached for the pistol on his hip.

It was too late. Gusztáv was already on top of him. The Hungarian used the heavy metal flashlight like a club, swinging it wildly in the darkness. He smashed it into the PRIMAL operative’s shoulder and Kurtz roared in pain, his hand numbed by the blow. Encouraged by his opponent’s anguish, Gusztáv swung again, hitting the other arm.

That was his undoing. The built-in Taser activated, sending a high-voltage blast through the metal flashlight and into his body. Kurtz reeled as a residual charge grounded through him.

“Kurtz, you OK?” called Aleks, still covering the stairs to the upper level.

“No,” Kurtz moaned. “I Tasered myself!” He pushed Gusztáv’s limp body onto the floor of the cellar and secured his hands with a set of plasticuffs.

“And they call me the clumsy one. Is the girl there?”

Kurtz tilted his NVGs up, activated the light on the side of his helmet, and scanned the room. The beam fell on the naked flesh of a woman lying on the ground, tied to a chair that had been tipped over. Kurtz dashed across the room. She appeared unconscious and barely recognizable.

“Aurelia!” He pulled out a pair of medical shears, sliced through the rope on the chair, and laid her naked body gently on the side. Aurelia’s face was a bloodied mess. A rubber tie remained wrapped around her arm and a syringe lay next to her. He shone the helmet light directly into her eyes: The pupils were fixed and dilated. Her breathing was almost nonexistent, a flutter, her heartbeat the same. He ripped his medical kit from the pouch on his belt. “Stay with me, Aurelia, stay with me.” He stuck a miniature heart rate sensor to her chest, synching it with the iPRIMAL on his wrist.

It started beeping angrily. She was flatlining. He pulled an auto-injector from the med pouch and punched it directly into her chest.

The sensor didn’t change.

He waited, hoping for a beat as the life-saving chemical stimulated her heart muscles.

Five seconds passed—nothing.

Then ten.

It was too late; the flatline on his combat interface never even flickered. She died on the cold stone floor, clearly a victim of a forced overdose.

Kurtz reacted calmly, taking off his glove and closing her eyes with a gentle hand. He picked his gun off the ground, inserted a new magazine, and slung it on his vest.

Gusztáv regained consciousness when Kurtz’s helmet light shone directly into his face. Blood ran down his face into his beard.

“Where are the girls?” Kurtz demanded as he forced the Hungarian up onto his knees.

“Who the fuck are you?” Gusztáv responded in accented English as he squinted into the bright light.

“Where are the girls?” Kurtz repeated himself, his voice devoid of emotion.

“Gone. There’s no one here.”

Kurtz lifted Gusztáv up and slammed him into the cellar wall. “You’re fucking lying. Where’s the wounded girl?”

“Dog-food girl?” He grunted. “She’s as good as dead.” He squinted into the bright helmet light. “Look, if you’re police, you’re going to get into shit for this. My boss is a big deal around here.”

“I’m going to ask you one last time, where are the girls?” Kurtz’s voice was hoarse.

“You’re already dead, pig. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve fucked with the wrong people. You’re going to end up deader than that bitch over there.” He spat in the direction of Aurelia’s corpse.

Kurtz stared directly into the man’s face for a long moment. Then he snapped.

His forefinger went through the handle loop of his Benchmade dagger and he drew it from its sheath behind the pouches on his chest. His other hand reached out and grabbed the flesh-trader by the face.

He punched the knife into Gusztáv’s throat, stabbing furiously, driving the blade in and out again and again. The cold steel severed all his major arteries, the point hacking into his spinal cord. Kurtz rammed the blade home one last time, all the way through his spine and out the back of his neck. He wrenched it free and let the body collapse onto the floor.

Gusztáv flopped around on his side like a dying fish. Blood gurgled from his mouth as his legs spasmed. Kurtz left him there in the darkness, dying alongside Aurelia’s body.

“Did you find her?” Aleks asked when he returned to the top of the stairs. “Where is she?”

Kurtz continued up the stairs to the second floor. “They killed her,” was all he said.

Working as a pair, it took them another ten minutes to clear the upper floor. Kurtz moved like a machine. Devoid of emotion, he executed a wounded man and shot another down as he ran. It was clear he had no intention of leaving any of them alive.

A small group of gunmen had holed up in the barn behind the manor. They were firing randomly, peppering the building with gunfire. The PRIMAL operatives had surveyed them from the top floor, standing well back in the rooms to avoid any chance of being spotted. Exiting through the front door of the residence, they hugged the building, working around to the flank.

“We could set fire to the barn…that would sort them out,” suggested Aleks as they crouched in the darkness.

“No,” Kurtz snapped. “There’s probably a girl in there. Aurelia had been looking after one who was bitten by a dog.”

“Then we need to get her out. We could use one of those cars…”

A line of vehicles was parked alongside the manor, a battered old Mercedes and two four-wheel drives. They snuck up to a four-wheel drive, its shot-out windows confirming it was the one used to abduct Aurelia. Aleks tried the door. Locked. He reached in through the shattered window and unlocked it. A single suppressed pistol round ensured the interior light wouldn’t come on as he opened it.

Another burst of AK fire slammed into the upper story of the manor as the remaining criminals fired at shadows. Kurtz lobbed a distraction onto the roof. It bounced on the slate tiles and exploded, drawing even more fire.

Aleks tore the wiring out of the Toyota SUV and jury-rigged an ignition circuit. It started with a cough, the diesel engine running rough in the cold air. He reached in, placed one hand on the brake, and dropped it into reverse. Then he gave the accelerator a jab and jumped back from the vehicle. The truck reversed slowly toward the barn, gaining more speed on the slight decline. Aleks and Kurtz jogged behind it, using the car as cover.