Chapter 12
MIKEY
Warm iron liquid splattered against my cheek as the body crumpled behind me, finally releasing its choke around my neck. Using the momentum, I twisted. Snapping free of one of three combatants, who was stretching my right arm out to the side.
Drawing a knife from its hiding place up my sleeve, I threw the blade at the assailant holding my legs hostage. In one fell swoop, I swung at the final aggressor still clamped down on my other arm. Fist connected with ribs, sending a sharp crack into the dark room. He collapsed with a grunt.
Scrambling to my feet, I withdrew my handgun from my thigh holster and sent two rounds each into the remaining three still alive.
Fuck was I grateful for Scottie’s shot.
Panting, adrenaline surging through my veins, I regained my bearings. Quickly holstering the handgun, I then packed the rifle back against my shoulder.
“Status, Viper?” Dom’s voice crackled into my ear. Backing up against the crumbling wall, I listened as footsteps pounded past me.
“Four down, over,” I replied through the radio with a whisper. And waited.
I knew more were coming for me. That was the point. I was the distraction to draw them away from the rest of the team. Dom and Duncan were headed straight for the top floor where the Black Box was supposedly located. Bernie and Ford were funneling the insurgents toward me.
Inhaling deeply, ready for the incoming wave of combatants, the first flicker of shadows crossed in front of the room—and kept going. A second shadow raced past, not stopping.
As quickly as possible, I slipped toward the frame and peered out past the frayed rug that hung limply over the doorway. Metal warm against my index finger, I squeezed, peppering a few rounds into the back of one of the assailants.
His body thumped to the floor as his buddy swung around at the base of the next set of rising stairs.
Bullets sprayed into the concrete right next to my cheek. I spun back behind the barrier. Sharp shards of cement pelted against my helmet and skin, pricking like tiny needles.
As soon as the gunfire stopped, I crashed out from the room and squeezed my trigger again. My shots cracked through the air. He dropped to the ground, tumbling back down the steps he had climbed. Blood dripped from his shoulder and neck, the life fading from his eyes as a pounding force against my back sent me sprawling to the dirty floor.
Rapidly spinning around, I barely raised my gun before it was kicked out of my hands. The assailant crashed on top of me, straddling me, and threw a couple jabs against my ribs. My lungs involuntarily collapsed. One hand of mine found the back of his neck as my legs wrapped around his waist. I rammed my entire body into his while rolling sideways.
As I pinned my forearm against his throat, locking him to the floor, someone else’s elbow slammed into the back of my head. Cold fingers clamped down around the front of my neck. Gulping down oxygen through a straw-like opening, stars blurred my vision as the enemy behind me tightened his hold.
Releasing the perpetrator below me from my choke, I threw my head back, slamming my skull against the nose of the assailant behind me with a loud crunch. Fingers flew free from my throat. The combatant I was straddling rammed a sluggish fist into my jaw.
My fingers fumbled for anything left behind on the floor of the abandoned building. Arms wrapped around my waist. Jagged stone met my touch, and I snatched it up. Bashing the broken concrete into the side of the head of the assailant below me, his struggling fell still just as the enemy upon my back jerked me upright from the floor.
“Fuck off,” I grumbled, ramming an elbow into his diaphragm. His grip on me faltered, his hold loosening around my torso, leaving me just enough room to spin around. But he quickly regained his breath and hugged me against his body. Chest to chest, I swept at his ankles. We crashed backwards, right into the room where I’d left four dead bodies.
His chin buried sharply into my shoulder as my back smacked against the ground. As his pressure deepened against me, my flailing fists did nothing. No matter how hard I attempted to knee him, no effective contact was made.
So, I snapped my teeth down around his ear.
Hot iron met my tongue.
A searing scream from his mouth silenced everything around us and sent a ringing through my head. He tore his chin up from my shoulder.
And a crack shot through the air, cutting his haunting wail short.
His body collapsed, dead weight onto mine. Warm blood dripped down my chin, coating my teeth and tongue red as I spat the torn part of his ear from my lips.
“What the hell was that?” Ford’s voice came through the radio as I breathed heavily beneath the dead assailant’s body.
“Viper ripped a dude’s ear off,” Scottie replied with a crackle.
“The fuck?” Bernie asked with a grunt.
“With his teeth,” she added.
There was no stopping the wicked smile that spread on my lips as I rolled my head sideways and stared out of the window. Though I couldn’t see her, I knew she saw me—a show that had been all for her.
“Of course he did,” Ford grumbled. “Two more coming your way, Viper.”
Shoving the body to the side, I rose from the ground and stalked back to the hallway. Posting up against the wall, I waited with my rifle at the ready in my hands—ready for the two assailants who were going to emerge from the staircase below me at any moment.
And I easily picked them off with a couple shots.
“Approaching the target.” Dom’s voice slipped through the chaos, quiet and reserved.
But there was hardly any break as he suddenly cried out, “Shit!”
“Shit? What’s going on?” I replied through the comms as my finger squeezed the trigger, sending another approaching assailant to his death.
“Get here, now!” Dom commanded. Cracks of gunfire swallowed any other instruction. All hell broke loose on the floor above. Spinning on my heel without hesitation, I aimed the barrel of my gun up the stairs and took two at a time.
Emerging at the top, smoke and shouting clouded my vision. Limbs flew aimlessly with bullets that whizzed by me.
I couldn’t orient myself amongst all of the mayhem. Wood splintered, crashing above my head against the wall behind me. Whether there was a window or wood, concrete or flesh, I had no idea. The enemy couldn’t decipher who was friend or foe. And Dom and Duncan were somewhere lost in the pandemonium.
“Location, Phoenix,” I asked through the comms.
“Far side from the staircase, your twelve,” Dom replied.
“I’m here,” Ford answered before I was able to, and a hand patted my shoulder, alerting me to the arrival of a companion. “Bernie’s keeping our exit clear, but we’ve got to hustle.”
“Moving,” I said and raised my gun, stepping into the havoc.
Sending cover fire as we pushed forward against the wall, something thumped against the ground. Bodies froze, gunfire ceased, and the only sound left was my own bullets whirring from the barrel.
They knew we’d joined the fight.
“Reloading,” I stated, and Ford took up the fire as I dropped the now empty mag and clicked a new one in its place.
The smoke and dust began to settle. We continued forward like the shadows that were our cover.
Chaos slipped away like a bubble on a hot summer day, replaced by the death that we delivered as the final combatant was met with Ford’s bullet.
“Hold,” he whispered. My feet stopped, and we both squatted behind a wooden dresser knocked haphazardly on its side.
Scanning the living area we’d breached, my heart raced like a madman against my ribs, commanding oxygen through my veins. Broken furniture scattered the rectangular room. A rug soaked in blood where four bodies lie. Two more dead targets slumped sideways against the wall opposite our position, dripping iron liquid like a leaky faucet onto the crib that lay cracked on two legs.
Inhaling a steadying breath through my mouth, I made a final sweep of the windowless room and paused at a wayward floorboard covered halfway by the rug. Directly where my twelve had been, where Dom and Duncan should have been but weren’t. It was now that I noticed this was the only room in the entire building that had wooden floors.
I nodded once at Ford, and he pointed his gun toward the staircase—the only way in or out from this final room—providing me cover. I crept forward, keeping my own weapon readied against my shoulder. Stepping around bullet casings and over a mangled hand whose owner was missing, I nudged the rug back with a toe.
It rolled away, as if trained to do so. The wayward floorboard wasn’t just any floorboard. Crouching, I spun the rifle to my back and crouched, prying the rest of the trap door up. A stench unlike anything I’d ever smelled before crashed hot against my face.
Choking down the vomit that curdled in my throat, I slunk around to the side of the ladder leading into a blackened abyss just as fingers wrapped around the last visible rung.
“Don’t move,” I snarled down into the black hole and swung my rifle at the unknown intruder.
“It’s me,” Dom grunted, rising another step. “Here,” he immediately added and flung something heavy at me before I’d even pulled my rifle away.
Not something, but someone.
“What the—” I grunted, catching the limp torso beneath its armpits just before it crashed back down the tunnel. Pressure beneath the body pushed as I dragged what seemed a lifeless man from the hole.
Sliding the body back toward Ford, I heard a gasp escape Tank’s lips. “Is that…?” he asked, immediately lowering his rifle and scrambling my way.
“Is he alive?” Tank dropped to his knees beside me. He pressed two fingers to the short man’s neck, feeling for a pulse as Dom emerged from the hole in the floor.
Long, black hair coated with blood splayed out from the man’s head. There were random bald patches amongst the greasy locks. His one eye was swollen, black and blue bruising covered the entire side of his face, and his nose bent at an awkward angle. Cuts and broken skin lined with dried, red liquid littered a face that seemed somewhat recognizable.
Maybe?
“I got a pulse! It’s faint but there,” Ford exclaimed as Duncan emerged from the hole behind Dom.
“Is that…?” I repeated Ford’s question, tipping my head sideways and scanning the man once more. His clothing was torn, bruising littered his skin along his ribs. Pants, caked in more blood, rested beneath fingers clenched in fists.
“It’s Powell,” Dom confirmed. One of the two men that Colonel Duke informed us was feeding us intel from the inside.
“Where’s the Black Box?” Ford asked, rolling Powell sideways, checking him over for any bullet holes or open wounds.
“Wasn’t here,” Dom answered.
“But he was? And beat to shit like this?” Ford questioned.
“We have to fucking go. He’s not gonna make it if we don’t get him to a medic ASAP,” Dom replied without really answering the questions that were rolling through all of our minds. At least, I assumed everyone else was wondering the same things I was.
Somehow Karim al-Jabari figured out who Powell was. That was the only explanation as to why he was beaten nearly to death. And he must have figured out we were coming for the Black Box, which meant, once again, our mission was foiled before it even began. Which thirdly led to my confusion as to how the assailants knew we’d be here and why there were so many left behind to guard someone almost dead.
But what did that mean for the other one still with the terrorist? Did al-Jabari know about him? And what happened to the Black Box?
But most importantly, how the hell did he even know we were going to be here?
“Crow,” Dom radioed as Ford hoisted Powell over his shoulders. “Meet us at our evacuation point.”
“Copy that, Phoenix,” Scottie’s voice replied.
“You take lead, Viper,” Dom instructed.
Standing up, I packed my rifle into my shoulder. A hand patted my shoulder, alerting me to move, and off we went back into the still night full of ghosts left behind by our hands.
“On our way to you, Bernie,” I spoke through the comms.
“All clear so far,” he answered as I stepped down the first flight of stairs.