Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (124 page)

The wind whipped Sarah’s still-healing face as the sharp cliffs, points, and ridges of the mountains passed beneath her. The air had a sharp bite to it that stung her cheeks. Her head and hands were the only extremities exposed to the cold. The rest of her was wrapped in her black Kevlar jacket and the microfiber black pants, completed with her steel-toed combat boots. Each of her Colt 1911 pistols was tucked neatly inside its holster under her jacket.

The pilot waved his hand and signaled that they were only ninety seconds from the drop point. Sarah nodded, closing her eyelids and shielding her eyes from the cold, dry wind. The churning pit in Sarah’s stomach that had been gnawing at her was still hungry, still waiting to be fed. Neither Bryce nor Mack wanted her to go, but she’d told them she could handle it, and when that didn’t work, the simple fact that Branston would give only her the specific coordinates of Demps’s location sealed the deal.

The trip to the mountains had been a long one, and for most of the journey, Sarah had tried figuring out why Branston had only wanted to speak with her, why he would tell only her the names. What was the connection? It had to be something more than just the blind need for her revenge. She’d seen a lot of bad guys during her tenure at the GSF. She’d run into thugs, henchmen, sidekicks, mob bosses, crooked politicians, slave traders, drug traffickers, terrorists, and every other kind of two-bit criminal that’s ever been locked up. But in all those instances, in all those faces she’d been eye to eye with, there was one type she’d only come across a handful of times. And that was the psychopath.

Psychopathy was the calculated illusion of an individual who appeared to have nothing wrong with them, with the intelligence, charm, and viciousness to make everyone around them believe it. It took a lot to make her queasy, but the times when she’d had to deal with those monsters were enough to make her lunch come up.

The pilot hovered the chopper over the side of the mountain on which there was a somewhat manageable path, six miles from Demps’s fortress. She descended the rope, lowering herself along with the rifle and duffel bag strapped to her back. The blades of the chopper blew up dust and tiny rocks as it flew off, leaving her alone with the mountain.

“Head dead south. The path there seems to run out, but I don’t think it’ll be too rocky.”

And Bryce. Sarah listened to him chuckle to himself, and she shook her head. “You know, for a second, I almost missed you. Almost.”

“It’s because I’m incredibly lovable.”

“Is that what Grace told you?” She smiled as Bryce remained silent. Her feet shifted on the rocky terrain, and the climb was slow. “A girl like her won’t stay on the market for long.”

“It’s complicated.”

“What’s complicated about it? You like her, and she, unbelievably, seems to have some type of attraction toward you. Don’t be a pansy-ass.”

“How do you know she likes me?”

“I’m a spy, Bryce. Reading people is part of the job description. Or if you don’t believe me, just get a read on her with the satellite. It measures people’s moods, right? Based on their body temperature and body language, and whatever other science shit you put in there.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.”

“Bryce! I was joking, you psycho. What the hell’s the matter with you?” Sarah continued her trek up the mountain, being mindful of her feet and scanning the horizon when she could to make sure no one snuck up on her. Bryce tried to backpedal, stumbling over his words to tell her he had been joking, too, but she didn’t need the satellite feed to know he was six shades of red.

***

The steel around Branston’s wrists had rubbed the flesh underneath raw. His arms and back had grown stiff from the lack of mobility. Every once in a while, he’d find the camera in the room, look it full in the face, and grimace. That piece of technology had been his only constant companion during his stay at GSF. Not that he didn’t enjoy the hospitality. The last time he had visited the GSF headquarters in Chicago, he’d been greeted with the similar cold stares and the same standoffish glances he’d seen over the past week.

The GSF, the world, they had no idea what they had coming to them. They couldn’t possibly understand what needed to be done. But that’s why there were people like him, those rare individuals that acted as the natural balance when the world tilted too far to the left or too far to the right. That balance was what had brought him to the GSF in the first place. An entire organization built for the single purpose of making sure the pipes of the world’s underbelly remained unclogged and all the shit continued to flow through smoothly.

The door opened, and Mack walked in with two individuals, a field agent and a desk jockey. Branston could always tell who worked behind the desk and who pulled the trigger. It was all in the eyes and body language. The desk jockeys would have a light hesitation to their movements, moving clumsily through the motions of simple tasks. Field agents, however, showed no hesitation. They were always three steps ahead to their next move. Everything they did flowed naturally, almost as if they were connected to whatever force was in the room with them.

Mack tossed a folder onto the table, and it slid forward a bit before it stopped on the table’s edge near where Branston sat. The prisoner looked down at the page Mack had opened it to, scanning the lines of legal jargon that no doubt would do him more harm than good. “Not much of a deal, Mack.” The chains around Branston’s ankles and wrists jingled with his movements. “I’m starting to think you don’t want me to be a free man.”

“I don’t want you alive,” Mack said. “But this is as good as it’s going to get. You and I both know that.”

“Well, you know I am going to need a pen pal while I’m locked up. I was hoping you could give me your address. Of course, I’ll have to wait to give you mine. I’m not sure where they’ll put me. Someplace secure, I’m sure.”

Mack pulled a pen from his pocket. “Vince, you can uncuff him.”

Branston watched Vince eyeball him, his face a piece of stone, which Branston reciprocated with a smile. Once free of the metal restraints, he rubbed the red and bruised flesh of his wrists, rotating them in the brief freedom and trying to enjoy the moment. “You never appreciate the simple pleasure of moving until it’s taken away from you.”

Mack extended the pen to Branston, who ignored it. Instead, he flipped through the pages of the document, scanning every line. His hands worked the edges of the folder with each turn of the page, groping the sides with his long fingers. “Well, it appears that I will live but go to jail for a very long time.” He finally reached for the pen and swirled his signature on the appropriate lines, taking a second to appreciate the beauty of his own handwriting. He closed the folder and handed it back to Mack.

Vince made sure Branston’s restraints were secure and briefly covered Branston’s hand with his own. Vince escorted Branston down the hall, not looking him in the eye until he tossed him into the cell, where the Branston gave Vince a smile and a wink. Vince grimaced and slammed the door shut. “Bye, Vinny.” The lights shut off, casting him into darkness. He knew the camera inside had a night-vision feature that allowed whoever was watching to make sure Branston wasn’t doing anything suspicious. But one of the flaws of the cell and the camera, and the darkness, was the fact that the restraints kept his back to the wall, and since his hands were cuffed behind his back the camera couldn’t see the small pick Vince had placed in his hands.

***

“Holy. Shit.” Despite the chilly temperature, a thick layer of sweat had covered Sarah from head to toe. The steep inclines and declines of the mountainside were harsh, and the jagged rocks that surrounded them didn’t allow much room for error. One misstep, and they’d have to scrape her body off the rocks like roadkill. “You’d think Demps would install an elevator or something, with all that money he has.”

“I think he was going for something stealthier than that,” Bryce said. “And also making it as inconvenient as possible for anyone trying to get to him.”

“Well, there’s a difference between making it difficult and being a dick,” Sarah replied. “But then again, this guy is a major dick.” Gravel crunched under the soles of Sarah’s boots when she heard the slide of rocks up ahead. Her hand gripped the pistol, and she had it aimed at the tumbling rocks before they stopped their roll. A large ram trekked its way across a narrow ledge, prancing around like it was walking on a flat surface. Sarah lowered her gun and watched the animal. “Think he’ll give me a ride?”

Before Bryce answered, a bullet smacked into the rocks to her right, and Sarah swiveled left, ducking behind the cover of a large shelf that had been cut into the side of the mountain. Sarah peeked over the shelf’s edge, and another spray of bullets hit beside her. It was just one shooter, a scout on the perimeter to check for any bad guys that might be heading toward Demps.

“He just radioed Demps,” Bryce said.

“Shit.” Bullets continued to pepper the top of the shelf, and Sarah felt the vibrations from each shot. “How much farther to the compound?”

“Half a mile.”

The gunshot’s echoes signaled that the shooter was about two hundred yards out. Sarah holstered the Colt and reached around for the rifle on her back. She clicked the safety off and loaded a magazine. After the click of the bullet sliding into the chamber, she laid her finger on the trigger and waited for the rhythmic thumping above her head to stop. When it did, she rolled out from under the shelf and brought the crosshairs to the ridge where the shooter was located.

The shooter ducked just as Sarah’s bullets connected with the stone wall he used for cover. She marched up the path, her feet and ankles wobbling awkwardly from the increased speed on uneven ground, while she kept the muzzle of the rifle aimed at the ridge. She pushed rocks backward on her ascent, continually squeezing the trigger any time the top of a head or an arm decided to venture out into the open. “Any movement at the compound?”

“The chopper on the flight deck is gearing up, and there’s a lot of movement on the south side, where you’d be heading. Looks like they’re getting ready for you.”

“How sweet.” Sarah gave her trigger finger a rest as she inched closer to the wall of stone that concealed the shooter. Her legs burned as her muscles worked overtime. The crosshairs in the scope bounced slightly, waiting for the shooter to show himself. Finally, he jumped up behind the wall, and before he had a chance to pull his trigger, Sarah sent a piece of lead through his left eye, and he dropped to the ground.

Sarah jumped over the ledge and dropped the duffel bag she’d been carrying and opened it up. “Bryce, tap me into their radio frequencies. I want to hear what’s going on.” The shouts and screams that followed were frantic. She could hear the edge in all their voices, the slight tremor in the syllables when they spoke. All of them were screaming her name over the radio. “My parents always warned me about becoming a girl with a reputation.”

“I don’t think this is what they had in mind when they told you that.”

Sarah shrugged and cocked her head to the side as she placed a line of C-4 explosives around the curving side of her belt. “Maybe. How many bad guys am I looking at?”

“Heat signatures are picking up at least twenty, but the numbers keep fluctuating. The mountains are interfering with the satellite’s link. It could be more.”

With her belt almost completely packed, Sarah picked up one more C-4 and wedged it into the last spot. “Can’t be too prepared.” The only things left in the bag were a few medical supplies and rations. She hid the bag in a cluster of rocks. “Bryce, put a GPS marker on my location right now. I’ll need to know how to get back to my buried treasure if things turn south.”

“It’s locked in, and the rest of your path should be clear of any hostiles until you reach the compound.”

Sarah’s feet thumped hard against the rocks, running up small hills then sliding down loose gravel on the other side. Each impact sent a vibration through her legs and back, the hard pounding of her feet only equaled by the pounding rhythm in her chest. She kept the rifle crooked under her arm as she stayed to the north, wanting to keep the high ground. Above her, even farther than she would be able to climb, rested the white peaks of the mountaintops, which were still cold enough to be covered with a thin layer of snow.

“Compound two hundred yards to the southeast,” Bryce said.

“I don’t even see it,” Sarah replied. “How deep did this guy bury his house?” Before Bryce could give her an answer, Demps’s henchmen fired an echoing cluster of gunshots. Sarah ducked low, letting the bullets bounce off the hard granite surfaces of the terrain. “Never mind. Found it.” The bullets echoed against the mountain like thunder. Sarah looked at the clusters of rock formations around her, following the line of sight all the way down to the top of the compound where the goons stood. Sarah heard the chopper’s engine warm up, the blades slowly churning, preparing for Demps’s escape. “Bryce, what’s the avalanche assessment for this area?”

“It’s fairly stable. You shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Right, but what if I wanted to cause one?” The crosshairs of Sarah’s rifle fell between the shoulders of one of the henchmen, and she fired. A small spurt of blood erupted from his chest, the armor-piercing round shredding through the Kevlar.

“Sarah, you wouldn’t be able to control it. The avalanche would be just as likely to kill you as everyone else.”

“Not if we do it right.” She searched for the cluster of guards, but they’d all taken cover, afraid of showing themselves and of the bullet that would no doubt greet them once they did. “All I need is a nice slide to keep my friends below busy.”

“It’s going to have to be very precise.”

“C’mon. I’m the epitome of precision.” One of the guards finally grew brave enough to poke his head out of the rocks, and Sarah split his skull in two for his trouble.

“The satellite will send you an uplink of where to set the charges. It should be enough to disrupt the helicopter but still give you enough room to pull Demps out.”

Sarah’s phone pinged, and she examined the coordinates provided. She studied the map for about thirty seconds. Then her hand found the side of her belt, where she grabbed one of the C-4 bombs and flipped the switch, which caused the explosive to go live. She eyeballed the distance for the first area and chucked the explosive in the vicinity.

“What are you doing?” Bryce’s voice was timid yet stern with concern.

Sarah flipped the switch of another explosive and chucked it to the next location. “Setting the charges.” She continued the pattern and set a piece of C-4 at every location until all the bombs were in place. Then she ducked behind a piece of rock, her back to the bombs she’d just placed.

“Sarah, I told you it has to be specific! You can’t just fling them into a spot that’s close to what I sent you. It has to be exact!”

Sarah activated the device on her mobile that allowed her to detonate the bombs remotely. She tucked herself in a ball. “Close enough for government work.”

“We don’t work for the government!”

“Still.” Sarah pressed the detonation button on her device, and the subsequent explosions rocked the earth behind her. Long sprays of dust and rock erupted from the side of the mountain and crashed down to the compound below. The ground beneath Sarah’s feet rumbled and shifted, and when she looked up behind her, she saw fault lines cut and break the side of the mountain into sheets, and each sheet tumbled down, winding toward the path of the compound, where the henchmen scrambled for cover.

Rocks the size of Volkswagens collided into each other, careening down the mountain at speeds of forty miles per hour. The rumble of the rocks silenced whatever screams and cries the henchmen sounded. It only lasted about thirty seconds but stacked a pile of boulders near the front entrance almost ten feet high and left the helicopter in ruins.

“I hate to say I told you so,” Bryce said.

“And what makes you think you can even say that?” Sarah snatched another C-4 explosive off her belt and flipped the switch.

“Sarah, don—”

“Fire in the hole!” Sarah chucked the explosive into the cluster of rocks at the compound’s entrance, the C-4 arching high until it clunked against the boulders and blasted a five-foot circle into the stone and triggered another small avalanche below the compound. Sarah kept the rifle close, looking to pick off any of the goons that might still have been alive. “You were saying?”

“Nothing.”

“No,” Sarah said, jumping from one boulder to the next, scanning the area. “Go ahead. What were you going to say?”

“How the hell do you get so lucky all the time?”

“It’s not luck, Bryce.” One of the henchmen crawled out from under the rock, bloodied, and from the looks of it, both his legs were broken, crawling toward his rifle. Sarah sent a bullet to the back of his head. “It’s skill. Pure, unadulterated skill.” When she made it to the entrance of the compound, she crawled through the hole cut in the rock and into what looked like some type of foyer in the building.

“From what I can see, the structure itself goes pretty far into the mountain. I can’t get a good read on anything because of the layers of stone, so you’ll be blind for a little bit.”

“Nothing like putting the blindfold on to spice things up. Kinky, Bryce. You should be sure to tell Grace you’re into that stuff.” A wry smile twisted up the corner of Sarah’s face as Bryce refused to dignify her comment with a response. The compound was dark. “Power’s out.” Sarah flicked on the light on her rifle, and the circular white beam hit one of the walls to the side, lighting her path. “I should have packed the glasses.”

“I wouldn’t have let you take them anyway,” Bryce said. “You pretty much toasted them the last time you were out.”

“You know what your problem is, Bryce? You want everything to stay in the package, untouched, unopened, perfectly clean. Just like all those toys in your apartment.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. They. Are. Not. Toys. They are collectibles, and they’re worth a lot of money, and if you take them out of the box or damage them, they lose their value.”

“You’ve seen the movie Forty-Year Old Virgin, right? Look, all I’m saying is life is messy. You can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.” Sarah kept a slow pace down the hall, wending her way deeper into the mountain. She flashed the light on either side but found no doors, no pictures, no windows, nothing. “You said there were twenty guards on the heat signature you took?”

“Give or take a few.”

There had been only six guards outside. That would leave at least a dozen hiding, waiting for her. For all she knew, there could be surveillance watching her right now. Finally, another hallway appeared to her left, and she veered in the same direction.

The new hallway was lined with rooms and doors more decorated to what she would have believed Demps’s tastes would be. The dark lit up with the flashes of gun barrels as bullets swarmed the hallway. Sarah rolled left into one of the rooms, returning fire as she did, providing cover for herself. “Any way you could hack into whatever system is running this place and turn the lights back on for me?”

“Been working on it, but so far I haven’t been able to find a work-around. If the generators are toast, there won’t be anything I can do.”

Sarah flicked her light off then let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The gunshots ceased, the goons no doubt waiting for her to come out. She didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to rush her, although she’d been proved wrong before. She plucked one of the smoke grenades from her belt and chucked it into the hallway. Night-vision goggles can’t see through smoke.

The smoke filtered through the hall and into both her room and whatever rooms were down the hall. She stepped out into the misty camouflage, the hissing canister still emitting its cover. Sarah kept her feet light and moved soundlessly through the smoke. She tossed the rifle over her back and removed the blade from its sheath. She squinted through the smoke, watching and waiting for anyone to appear.

Visibility was less than three inches from her face, and the first body Sarah collided with received the tip of her blade in his neck and her hand muffling his screams. She lowered the body to the floor, letting the smoke cover him as she continued down the hall. Wherever the henchmen were, the boss couldn’t be too far behind.

Another body rammed her shoulder. Sarah brought her right arm around the front of his face and grabbed the back of his head. Her left hand took hold of his chin, and she gave a vicious twist just as the man managed to squeeze off three rounds into the ceiling.

The stampede of feet down the hallway caused Sarah to pull both pistols from their holsters. The bullets that met her own were sloppy, sporadic, the shooters hoping to hit her by chance. The smoke thinned, and the visibility increased. The thicket of bullets heading her way grew denser, and Sarah rolled right, seeking cover in another room. She fired into the clusters of guards, shell casings ejecting from her Colts. The recoil from the .45s felt good in her hands, rippling from her wrists and through her shoulder.