PRIMAL Nemesis (Book 2 in the Redemption Trilogy, A PRIMAL Action Thriller Book 6) (The PRIMAL Series) (21 page)

Chapter 26

Bishop
turned into the barn alongside Aleks. Pavel covered the rear as they swept the inside of the structure for hostiles. He spotted the two SUVs parked together. “Guys, those are Pershing's trucks. Kurtz is here.”

They cleared the barn then directed their attention to the house.

“No sign of movement,” reported Miklos from his position in the jungle.

Stepping out of the barn, they moved into a two forward one back formation. They had only advanced a few yards when a dazzling bank of lights on the house flashed on. Gunshots rang out and Bishop felt a bullet strike his armor. Another tugged his sleeve. Next to him Aleks dropped to a knee as he returned fire.

Tracer reached out from the jungle as Kruger hit the front of the house with a long burst.

“Multiple targets at the house,” Miklos reported. “Two tangos down.”

The sensors in Bishop's helmet adjusted for the bright lights and revealed the muzzle blasts coming from the front porch. He sprinted to the house firing his Tavor.

Pavel got there first with Aleks right behind him.

“Everyone OK?” Bishop asked as they crouched under a window. “Aleks–” Bullets punched through the planking. He dropped to the ground as splinters of wood showered him.

Aleks pulled off his backpack and ripped out a collapsible frame charge. He unfolded the explosives, stood ignoring the bullets, and stuck it to the side of the house. “Fire in the hole!” He hit the deck as it detonated.

The explosion shuddered through Bishop's chest. Debris rained down on them as the wall imploded. He climbed to his feet as Aleks tossed a flash bang through the ragged breach. It detonated with a thump and the hulking Russian leaped through. Bishop climbed after him as gunfire erupted from inside.

They’d entered a kitchen. The blast had thrown the oven across the room. Aleks was kneeling behind it firing rapid shots at a target in another room. As Bishop moved alongside Aleks’s head snapped back and he collapsed. Bishop responded with an automatic burst. Tearing a HE grenade from his rig he popped the handle and tossed it into the next room. It exploded and Pavel pushed past him clearing the room with a series of deliberate shots.

“Clear!” Pavel transmitted.

“Aleks, you OK?” Bishop asked.

There was no response. The bullet had torn away half the helmet’s sensors damaging the radio.

Aleks ripped it off and threw it to the ground.

“Stay at the rear, mate. Pavel and I will handle the rest.”

“
Nyet!
” the Russian exclaimed as he staggered to his feet. “Kurtz is MY partner.”

Bishop shook his head and continued clearing the ground floor. There were a total of four dead men. Three of them were dressed in assault rigs with helmets and NVGs; probable GES contractors. The other guy was young, wearing soft armor and carrying an AR carbine.

“This one’s probably CIA,” said Pavel.

Aleks lumbered out of the room, Tavor against his shoulder. Bishop hurried after him. As they moved down a narrow corridor he caught up with the Russian. He spotted a door on the left and checked the handle. It was unlocked. He pushed it open and lobbed in a stun grenade. There was a scream as the room shook and Bishop kicked the door. He charged in and nearly tripped down a staircase. Slowing, he paced down the stairs, Pavel on his heels, opening the angle down into the cellar. There was a man sitting on the floor with his hands over his ears. “Stay down!” Bishop yelled, his voice distorted by the helmet. “I’ve got one prisoner in the basement. No sign of Kurtz.” Pavel raced down and flexicuffed the man’s wrists.

At the top of the stairs Aleks swore and decided to clear the final rooms in the building. Kurtz had to be in one of them. He stepped inside the first room sweeping it with the flashlight on his weapon. All clear.

As he moved to the next room shots rang out. He felt the muzzle blast as a bullet struck his Tavor, tearing it from his grasp. He rushed the shooter, grabbing the hot barrel of the weapon. He pushed it toward the ceiling and chopped at the gunman's wrist. As he met his attacker face to face he realized it was the same man who’d tried to abduct Kurtz's parents.

“You commie fuck!” snarled the American as he tried to wrestle control of his short-barreled FN. “Come for your skinny Nazi boyfriend?” He smashed Aleks’s face with a savage headbutt, let go of the rifle with one hand and went for his sidearm.

The pistol went off twice striking Aleks’s chest plate. The impact winded him but he managed to keep a grasp on the rifle.

The GES operative lowered his aim and fired at the gap between the chest plate and groin armor.

Aleks grunted as bullets penetrated flesh. With a superhuman effort he twisted the assault rifle from the ogre’s grasp and smashed it into his face.

The American stumbled backward firing blindly. Another bullet struck Aleks but he ignored it, aiming the rifle and squeezing the trigger. The powerful 7.62mm round caught his attacker in the throat blowing his spinal cord across the wall in a splash of blood and gore.

Shrek died wearing an expression of disbelief. He slumped to the ground having lost all control of his limbs and convulsed in a rapidly expanding pool of his own bodily fluids.

Aleks lifted his combat shirt where the rounds had penetrated the gap in his armor. Blood was seeping from two half-inch holes in his abdomen. He slumped against the wall and felt for an exit hole. There wasn’t one. He pulled a self-adhesive trauma bandage from a pouch on his vest, ripped it open, and pressed it against the wounds. Then he stabbed his thigh with a morphine auto-injector. He waited till the warm sensation swept through his body then staggered to his feet. As he re-entered the corridor Pavel appeared.

“You OK?”

“
Da
, I ran into an old friend. He’s dead now. Have you found Kurtz?”

“Not yet. I’ve cleared the upper level. It’s empty. There’s one prisoner downstairs.”

“He will know where.”

As they reached the door to the basement they could hear Bishop’s voice.
“Where
’s Pershing and the man he brought in?” The PRIMAL team leader had his knee in the captured man’s back and was pinning his head to the concrete floor.

“Behind the shelves,” the prisoner whimpered.

“Can you open it?”

“I’ve already tried, they’ve locked it from the inside.”

Bishop glanced at Aleks as he made his way down the stairs. The Russian was white-faced but gave a thumbs-up.

Pavel examined the shelving then slid it sideways revealing a heavy steel door. He checked the hinges and the keypad.

“What's your assessment?” asked Bishop.

“We might be able to crack the door lock if we patch Flash in,” said Pavel.

“He's offline and we don’t have time.”

“There’s not enough HE to breach the door.”

Bishop looked around the room and spotted a tiny camera in the corner. “There might be another way.”

He found a piece of paper on a workbench and scribbled a message on it. Then he held the sign up to the camera.

30 seconds to open the door or we kill your man.

He stood over the prisoner on the floor, aimed his Tavor at the back of his head, and waited. The door didn't open. He fired a single round at the concrete floor next to his face. Bishop knew he couldn’t execute the unarmed man, especially since he was a CIA agent. He turned and shot out the camera in frustration.

“Go in through the wall,” grunted Aleks. “In Chechnya we always use the mouse hole.” He dumped his backpack on the floor.

“Aleks, you hurt?” Bishop ran his eye over the Russian. Multiple bullet strikes had creased the camouflaged green armor. His nose looked broken and was bleeding.

“I'm fine,” he snapped back. “Now let’s get inside.”

Pavel pushed aside a pile of boxes to reveal a section of concrete wall next to the steel door.

Bishop stripped the explosives out of Aleks’s backpack along with a roll of cloth tape. “Ring cutting charge and a central punch.”

Pavel helped him tape the explosives to the wall. They laid the cutting charges in a rough circle and then taped blocks of C4 in the middle. Bishop linked them with det cord and finished by taping a Bluetooth-activated detonator to the end of the cord. “Upstairs, go.”

Pavel grabbed the prisoner and pushed him up to the ground floor. Bishop watched Aleks follow him. The big man walked stiffly.

When they were clear Bishop checked the iPRIMAL strapped to his wrist. The detonator app glowed green. “Aleks, stay here with the prisoner. Pavel and I will clear the basement.”

The Russian shook his head. “
Nyet
, I need to go in.”

“No, without your helmet, you're staying put.” He thumbed the transmit button on his rifle’s foregrip. “Miklos, Kruger, the ground and upper level of the house are clear. Aleks is here. I need you to move across and secure.”

“Acknowledged.”

Bishop turned to Pavel. “You ready?”

He tipped his helmet in response. “Let's do it.”

Bishop tapped the iPRIMAL on his wrist.

The explosion was savage. A shockwave and fragments of concrete blew up the stairs. Dust billowed through the house and the lights flickered.

Bishop was down the stairs a moment later, his helmet protecting him from the dust. The integrated thermal sensors revealed an angry red hole had been blasted through the wall. The heavy steel door remained intact.

The breach was smaller than he anticipated. There was no way he was going to get through with all his gear on. He pulled the emergency bail handle on his armor and it fell to the ground with a thud. Placing his rifle down, he drew his pistol and dived headfirst into the breach. Molten reo-rod singed his fatigues as he wriggled through.

The charge had trashed what had been a storage room. The stench of explosives hung heavy in the air. A door from the room had been blown open. A grunt behind him signaled Pavel following him up.

He caught a glimpse of someone in the doorway. He pulled back as bullets furrowed the wall next to him. His pistol barked in reply and the target fled. The aiming laser emitting from his pistol failed to cut through the dust.

As he rounded the next doorway more shots rang out showering him in shards of concrete. He returned fire as a figure ran across the corridor through another side door. Giving chase, he crouched low, turning through the door into a small observation room. Another door slammed shut. He rose and looked through a large window. On the other side Kurtz was half-naked, tied to a chair. Behind him a woman held a pistol to his head.

As Pavel entered behind him a burst of automatic fire shattered the glass. Bishop ducked but one of the rounds hit the Russian’s shoulder. Pavel spun, falling to the ground. He too had removed his armor.

Hunkered below the bottom of the window Bishop changed the magazine on his Beretta. The gunfire subsided and he returned fire blindly over the wall.

“Stand and face me like a man, you coward.”

Bishop knew the Texan accent. It was Pershing. “Hey George, you still angry about Mexico?”

“I knew it was you. Stand the hell up, Aden, or I'll put a bullet in your buddy right now.”

Bishop slowly got to his feet. Pershing was in the corner of the room with a carbine aimed at him. Only a few feet away Kurtz was tied to a metal chair. The German’s face was battered and the floor under him was bloody. The groin of his pants had been sliced open and was drenched with fluid. The stench of scorched flesh hung in the air. He could only imagine the agony he’d been put through.

“Tables have turned, Pershing,” he growled. “All your men are dead. Put the weapon down and I'll let you live.”

“Oh, you're going to let me walk? After all we've been through?”

“I'm here for my guy. You hand him over and you and the girl live.”

Pershing's eyes darted across to Kurtz and the woman. Bishop could see he was weighing his odds.

Pavel whispered over the comms, “Share me your camera feed.”

“Let’s talk about this man to man,” said Bishop. He put his pistol down on the window ledge and removed his helmet. As he held it under his arm he activated the camera.

Kurtz groaned, trying to get words out as he raised his battered face from where it was resting against his chest. The female with the pistol was still pressing it firmly against the back of his head.

“Hang in there, buddy,” Bishop murmured.

“Our backup is on its way, Aden. You might want to lay down your guns. I can cut you a deal.”

“I don't think so.”

“Suit yourself.” Pershing raised his rifle.

Pavel didn't bother standing. He’d brought up Bishop’s helmet camera feed on his own heads-up-display. He simply held his pistol over the wall, activated the laser, and using Bishop's helmet to aim, fired a single round. The bullet hit Pershing in the eye, tore through his brain, and punched a hole in the back of his head. His carbine clattered to the ground and he toppled sideways.