Apocalypse (19 page)

Olaf watched as Katherine Abell turned to face the judge once again.

‘And I say again, your honor, that this case is based upon a combination of one family’s desire to profit from the generosity of IRIS and one prosecutor’s determination to gain
professional satisfaction from a high-profile case that has no substance in the eyes of any unbiased observer. This case is reliant upon legal-precedent cases involving military and industrial
firms working in warzones, not the work of a charity on home soil with a long record of philanthropic success.’

The judge leaned back in her chair and looked out across the faces of the Uhungu family for a long moment before finally speaking.

‘The court will adjourn until this afternoon,’ she said. ‘All rise.’

Olaf stood with the rest of the court and watched as the judge filed out of sight before looking down at Macy Lieberman and the blue file that she slipped into her bag. Olaf turned and strode
out of the gallery. Joaquin’s orders had been clear. Despite Katherine Abell’s confidence, Olaf knew that the papers stolen by Charles Purcell would almost certainly be enough to bring
Joaquin Abell to the stand, and that was the one thing that Olaf did not want to see happen.

Joaquin Abell was like a brother, a father even, and he owed him his life.

Olaf stepped out of the court into the muggy Florida sunshine, watching the traffic flow by as he lit a cigarette. Pedestrians cast disapproving glances in his direction but his huge physique
and stony expression stalled any complaint. It had been many years since anyone had dared threaten Olaf, a far cry from his childhood.

As he turned and walked along the sidewalk he reflected not for the first time how fortunate he had been to have encountered Joaquin Abell when he did, as a skinny, nervous 15-year-old. An
orphan, he had been sent to a small school in Loen, nestled deep in the fjords of western Norway, where his companions had proved themselves every bit as cruel as the bitter winters that enshrouded
his homeland in their icy embrace. After years of torment Olaf had become a virtual recluse within an already isolated community, taking any opportunity to avoid school and the torment of his
peers.

He had been fifteen when tragedy struck the little village, a particularly severe snow storm producing an avalanche that killed almost half of his class. As others cried, Olaf struggled to
contain his joy at seeing half a dozen of his hated tormentors hacked from the compacted ice, their purple faces twisted in the rigor mortis of death.

Days later, a ship had arrived bearing a large blue IRIS logo, and Joaquin Abell had promised money to rebuild the damaged school. Awed by the giant yacht and its charismatic owner, Olaf had
seen his chance to escape the miserable little town in which he had been entrapped for so long. He had begged Joaquin personally for a job aboard the
Event Horizon
, only to be dismissed out
of hand. Stricken with grief, for the first time in his life Olaf had taken matters into his own hands and stowed away aboard the giant yacht.

Years of evading his tormentors had given Olaf a primal instinct for survival, and it was almost three weeks before he was discovered by engineers and dragged before Joaquin Abell once more. To
his surprise, Joaquin had agreed not to have him returned home. Maybe he had seen something in Olaf’s desperate eyes or had simply taken pity on him, but by that evening Olaf Jorgenson was in
his own quarters and sailing away from his homeland forever, into a world he had never seen before.

Over the years that had passed since, Olaf had grown closer to Joaquin. As a wiry little boy, working on the yacht had toughened his muscles and seen him grow stronger. His increasing size and
confidence had led him to take up body-building, and that in turn had led him into the use of steroids. His habit financed by his employer, who always seemed to know precisely what he needed and
wanted, Olaf grew into a giant. Now, at six foot four and 260 pounds, Olaf was an unstoppable force of nature who knew nothing of the meaning of the word compromise.

Olaf turned and followed the sidewalk around the edge of the court’s parking lot, his cold blue eyes seeking his target. It was clear to Olaf that, win, lose or draw, Katherine Abell was
not going to be able to prevent the court from hearing the details on the files held by Macy Lieberman. Therefore, he would ensure that the files simply disappeared.

The parking lot was overlooked on four corners by CCTV cameras. Olaf looked across the lot and saw several cars parked beneath a clump of palm trees that hung listlessly on the humid air. The
trees were mature, the fronds hanging six or seven feet long and obscuring the area under the tree from the view of the cameras.

Several cars had parked there, the owners evidently seeking the shade offered by the trees. Olaf worked his way around the edge of the lot, careful to walk nonchalantly and not draw any more
attention to himself other than that caused by his impressive physique.

He spotted an old man in a cheap suit shuffling toward a battered old Dodge Polara, its red paint faded by years spent sweltering beneath the Florida sun. Olaf guessed the man’s age as
about sixty-five. The car, the threadbare clothes and the nicotine-stained teeth all told Olaf the same story: old, alone, and won’t be missed.

Olaf moved around to the sidewalk in front of the Polara, the palm trees shielding him from the view of the cameras as the old man limped around to the driver’s door and reached out for
the handle. As he opened the door, Olaf leapt over the parking lot fence and was directly behind the old man in two giant strides. Even as the old-timer turned his head to squint up at Olaf with
rheumy eyes, Olaf reached out with one huge hand that encircled the old man’s jaw like a glove around a baseball. He felt a thick wedge of his greasy, lank hair squeeze against his other hand
as it folded around the back of the man’s neck. The old man, his jaw clamped shut and his head pinned, gagged as he tried to cry out. Olaf turned him with unstoppable force and then drove his
shoulders downward as he dropped violently at the knees.

The old man’s forehead smacked with a sickening crunch across the top of the open driver’s door. Olaf felt the brittle bones of the neck snap like dry twigs as he caught the old
man’s corpse and lifted him bodily into the car and shoved him into the passenger seat. Carefully, Olaf placed the seatbelt across him to keep the body upright as though he were caring for an
elderly friend, and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Olaf closed the door and reached into the old man’s pockets, fumbling around until he found the keys to the Polara.

He started the engine and reversed out of the parking slot.

Now, all he had to do was wait for Macy Lieberman to leave the courthouse.

June 28, 11:27

Ethan broke the surface of the water alongside the
Free Spirit
’s hull, just in time to see a ragged line of bullet holes burst through it and spray fiberglass
chips into the water around him. Lopez came up beside Ethan.

‘What the hell’s going on?!’ she shouted as she pulled her respirator out.

Ethan saw a sleek speedboat roar past nearby, its powerful wake tossing him about on the waves.

‘Get aboard!’ Ethan hollered back, shoving her toward the
Free Spirit
’s stern ramp.

Lopez swam to the ramp just as Doug Jarvis appeared and reached out for her hand. He hauled her aboard with surprising strength before reaching out for Ethan. Ethan dragged himself up out of the
water just as a deafening rattle of gunfire crackled out from the bridge.

Scott Bryson was on one knee against the port rail beside the wheelhouse, an automatic rifle pulled tightly into his right shoulder as he fired short, controlled bursts at the speedboat circling
back toward them. As Ethan yanked off his diving equipment he saw the shots fall close around the speedboat’s hull, keeping it at bay.

‘Who the hell are they?’ Lopez shouted.

Jarvis hauled the heavy oxygen cylinders off her back.

‘More to the point, who do they think we are, and how did they know that we’d be here?’

From the bridge, Scott Bryson bellowed down at them.

‘How about we have this goddamned chat later and concentrate on staying alive?’ The captain turned and tossed the rifle toward Ethan. ‘Keep them off our ass!’

Ethan caught the rifle as Bryson leapt up into the wheelhouse and threw the boat’s throttles open. The
Free Spirit
surged forward and sent Ethan reeling as he struggled to keep his
balance.

‘Incoming!’

Ethan heard Lopez’s cry of alarm and saw the speedboat rushing toward their port hull at full throttle, two men with rifles aiming in his direction.

‘Get down!’

Ethan hurled himself flat onto the deck, his fingers instinctively finding the safety catch and trigger with the same fluidity he had once possessed as a marine fighting in Afghanistan’s
Tora Bora caves. The weapon came up into his shoulder even as he saw the first burst of muzzle flash from their attackers’ weapons and a lethal hail of automatic fire sprayed across the
boat’s deck. Ethan, enveloped in a bubble of adrenaline-fuelled silence, ignored the bullets that zipped and tore into the deck around him as he breathed slowly and took aim. A marine
instructor’s words drifted unbidden through his mind.

All the automatic fire in the world is useless against one well-placed round. Shoot slow, son, and you’ll shoot sure.

The shooter raked the
Free Spirit
as the speedboat turned away at the last moment amid crashing surf and shining metal. Ethan’s breathing stopped for a single second as he squeezed
the trigger once.

The round hit the shooter low in his belly as the speedboat raced past and bounced on the churning waves. Ethan saw the man’s mouth gape open in shock as he folded over at the waist, his
legs crumpled beneath him, and he tumbled back into the speedboat.

Ethan looked over the barrel of the rifle and saw at least four other men in the rear of the vessel. He turned to Jarvis.

‘We’re going to need help!’

The old man already had a cellphone in his hand and was shouting into it as he sheltered close to the wheelhouse.

Scott Bryson shouted down at Ethan from the bridge.

‘Nice shooting, boy scout! Now they’ll be really pissed!’

Ethan stood up and rushed to the bridge, keeping one eye on the speedboat as it circled out for another pass. The adrenaline was now pumping through his veins like a freight train powering
through the night as he leapt up the steps two at a time and pointed at their attackers.

‘Turn the boat around,’ he ordered Bryson. ‘Head straight for them.’

‘Like hell, son, this boat’s my livelihood.’

‘We sure as hell can’t outrun them,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘And your livelihood’s no good to you if you’re dead.’

‘We can’t outshoot them, either,’ Bryson pointed out. ‘And you’re not Jack goddamned Bauer, so what’s the point of going down in a blaze of glory?!’

Ethan glanced out of the bridge windows to see the speedboat racing toward them again.

‘You of all people should remember what you were taught in the SEALs,’ he said. ‘Defense and offense. When attacked by a superior force, you do the last thing that they
expect.’

Scott Bryson looked down at him for a long moment, and then for the first time he smiled at Ethan.

‘You advance on their position.’

With a flourish, Bryson span the wheel and the
Free Spirit
heeled gamely over, turning to face the speedboat until they were on a head-on collision course.

‘Take them down the left side!’ Ethan shouted as he jumped back down to the deck.

Ethan ran low to the stern of the boat, sliding onto his belly and aiming across the port stern. A crackle of gunfire snapped across the wind as he slowed his breathing. The speedboat soared
past, two men firing their weapons from the hip with aimless abandon in the hopes of catching a lucky hit. A salvo of bullets splintered the hull close to Ethan’s shoulder and showered him
with debris.

As the boat thundered by, Ethan aimed at one of the shooters, taking advantage of the low-aspect movement now that the speedboat was moving almost directly away from him. Despite the pitching of
the boats across the waves, the target was easier to track. Ethan held his breath and fired two rounds, double-tapping the trigger as he aimed for the man’s torso.

The first round missed, hitting the deck low and to the man’s left, but the second round hit him straight through the neck, a fine mist of blood spraying into the wind as the man was
hurled backwards to sprawl on the deck in a tangle of writhing limbs and spilling blood.

Ethan rolled over and shouted to Bryson above the wind.

‘Turn her around!’

Bryson responded without argument this time, the
Free Spirit
wheeling around on the churning surface of the ocean as she chugged her way toward their attackers.

Lopez struggled across the heaving deck and hurled herself down alongside Ethan.

‘We can’t keep this up forever,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later one of us is going to get hit.’

Ethan nodded and looked at Jarvis, who was huddled down behind a bulwark alongside the pressure suit, as he held a hand to one ear and his cellphone to the other.

‘We’ve got to hang on until he gets the cavalry here.’

Lopez nodded and then clapped Ethan’s shoulder.

‘I’ve got an idea, be ready to shoot again.’

Lopez staggered across the heaving deck as a wall of spray hissed over the boat’s bows. Bryson had aimed directly for the speedboat this time, and the psychological effect of their actions
was already forcing their enemy to hang back and circle beyond weapons range.

‘They’re coming back!’ Bryson shouted, as the speedboat suddenly turned hard into them and rushed head-on once again.

‘Bring them down the starboard side!’ Ethan heard Lopez shout to the captain.

Ethan shifted his position slightly as he heard the speedboat’s powerful engines growling and the familiar rattle of gunfire as the men aboard opened up once again. Ethan risked a glance
over his shoulder, and saw Lopez hefting an oxygen cylinder onto her shoulder as she balanced against the pitch and roll of the deck.