Ultimate Power (23 page)

"Why?"

His hand slammed down on the table, hard, causing his image to tilt to the side. He leaned forward and corrected the camera. "Because you're becoming like irritating little mutts, always getting beneath my feet."
 

Alexa shrugged. "You know what they say."

"No, what
do
they say, Captain?"

Alexa smiled. "It's not the size of the bite that counts, it's how long you gnaw."
 

The screen went dark.

Rowley grabbed her arm. "Let's go, princess."

Alexa wrenched herself free and shoved Rowley away, running toward the glass window, hoping she could find an opening to jump through. A shot reverberated through the room and a pane of glass shattered above her head.

"Stop Captain, or I'll shoot you in the head."

She skidded to a halt and raised her hands. "Don't shoot," she said, slowly turning around.

Rowley had the gun pointed at her chest, sauntering towards her. "Even if you get off this island, dolly, you have nowhere to go. You're twenty nautical miles from land. You'll drown if the sharks don't get to you first."

"Was worth a try, I guess."

He chuckled, lifted his shoulder an inch. "I guess."

Alexa held her hands up in front of her, in a defensive posture. "Have you ever been strapped to one of those torture machines, Mr. Rowley?" she asked, taking a step towards him. She held out her arms, wrists up, ready to be cuffed.

He shrugged. "No, why?"

Alexa stepped to her the side and grabbed the gun by the barrel. A shot barked and the bullet whistled safely past her head. She twisted the gun in his hand and disarmed him. "Because you're about to find out how it feels," she said, spitting on her hand and trying to shake the burn away.

She stepped behind him, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressed the gun into his kidneys. "Now we're going for a little walk."

He pulled at her arm. "You're choking me."

She shrugged. "Payback.”

President Nicole Rue lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply and stubbed it out impatiently in the overflowing ashtray. She glanced up at the television monitor again, but the red blips were still gone. "Where could they be?" she asked Henrie Dumas.

He looked tired, the wisps of hair on his balding head standing up in all directions. He tugged at his tie as he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, Madam President. "

"Can't you charter a course from the airport where they were last seen?"

"We could try, but we'll need to search a massive area, Madam President."

"Are the troops on standby?" she asked, tapping another cigarette from the box.

"Affirmative," Major Jacques Baptiste from the Intelligence Services said.

They all looked up as President Rue pointed at the screen. "Look!" she shouted. The red blips had reappeared. She tossed the cigarette on the table. "Where is this?"

Baptiste studied the map on the table, then tapped his forefinger on it. "Somewhere off the coast of Knifepoint Island, thirty five miles south west from here."

"Major, mobilize your men. Let’s go," President Nicole Rue said to Dumas, grabbing her bag from the table.

Alexa shoved Rowley through the door, holding him by the nape of his neck, the gun pushed into his kidneys. She steered him down the passageway. "Tell them to drop their weapons," she said as two men raised their pistols at them.

"Put it down, my china's," Rowley shouted at them.

They hesitated.

"Drop it, okes."

The guns clattered to the ground.

Alexa pushed Rowley in front of her. "Take me to Bruce and Laiveaux." She pushed him ahead, gathering the weapons as they passed.

He strode through the passageway and stopped in front of a nondescript brown door. It had no special markings, looking like the dozen of others they had passed.

"Open it," she ordered.

He punched a combination into a keypad beside the door and swung it open. The stomach-churning rumbling made her swallow. "Switch that damn thing off."

She pushed the gun into his ribs as his hand went to his pocket.

"Easy, dolly," he said as he fished a remote from his pocket and held it in the air. He pressed two buttons. The strobing flashes stopped and the noise abated.
 

"Stop those things," Alexa said.

He pushed another button and the gyroscopes started slowing down.

"Release them," she ordered.

He unstrapped Laiveaux and Bruce, Alexa watching him closely, the gun pointed at his head.

Laiveaux fell onto his knees, gagging and hacking. Bruce was semi-conscious, shaking his head from side to side and moaning.

"Help me," she ordered the general.

Laiveaux lifted a hand, standing on all fours. "Give me a minute."

"Come on, General, we have no time."

He stood up unsteadily and helped Alexa strap Rowley into the gyroscope. Alexa pressed a button on the remote. The machine started swaying and rocking.

She handed Laiveaux the pistol. "Okay, let's go," she said and wrapped Bruce's arm around her shoulder. Laiveaux helped her heave him to his feet, grabbing him by his belt.

She slammed the door behind them, and they shuffled down the passageway, dragging Bruce between them.

"Where are we going?" Laiveaux asked, breathing heavily.

"There's a pool, I think we can get out that way."

Laiveaux nodded, a grim look on his face.
 

Alexa stopped at the fifteenth door down, and she turned the doorknob. It was locked. "Shit."

"Look out," Laiveaux shouted and ducked as two men appeared around the corner and started firing on them. He fired back and both of them went down.

Laiveaux hurried over to one of the injured men, grabbing him by his collar and dragging him toward the door. "Open it," he ordered.

The man shook his head, blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder.

"Open it, dammit!" Laiveaux shouted, pushing a thumb into the wound. The man shrieked and Laiveaux took his thumb away.
 

"Three, zero, nine, three," the man groaned, blinking away the tears.

Alexa punched in the code and the door clicked open.
 

"Thanks." Laiveaux pistol-whipped the man on the back of the head. They dragged Bruce through the door as they heard more excited voices shouting in the passageway.

Alexa ripped a towel from a railing on the wall and yanked the railing out of its bracket. She used the pistol as a hammer, flattening an end of the railing before she jammed it between the door and the floor. She dragged Bruce to his feet again. "C'mon Dad, work with me."

"We need to get out of here," she screamed, firing at the wraparound window. Laiveaux helped her and they dragged Bruce to the shattered window and pulled him through. They exited the building, walking onto what looked like a grassed terrace and scrambled down towards the jagged rocks. "Bruce, wake up," Alexa shouted, the pain in her thigh a red-hot poker causing her to limp.

A man appeared in a window a floor above them and Laiveaux fired at him. "Go, Alexa, I'll keep them occupied."

Alexa dragged Bruce backward by his belt and collar, awkwardly maneuvering him onto some rocks and managing to drag him into a shallow tidal pool, then took cover behind one of the large stones.

Bruce grimaced, opened an eye and shook his head. He stood on all fours and vomited into the water.
 

"How are you feeling?" Alexa asked.

"My brain is hurting," he said, pulling his face. "What's going on?"

"We managed to get out, but we need to get off the island, they're jamming our GLD signals."

"You're wounded," Bruce said, looking concerned.

"Flesh wound, nothing serious." She glanced up as Laiveaux made his way towards them, firing over his shoulder. "Come on, let's go," she shouted.

She gave Laiveaux covering fire and he scurried toward them, slipping in behind the rock and settling in beside her. "What now?"

Alexa shrugged. "I'm almost out of ammo."

Laiveaux nodded grimly. "I have a couple of shots left, then that's it."

"How far do we need to get off the island before the GLD's start working again?" Bruce asked, sitting up.

Alexa chewed her lip. "Probably a couple of hundred meters, three hundred tops."

"So what are we waiting for?" Bruce asked, standing up.

They scrambled over the rocks into deeper water, then dove in and started swimming, navigating their way through the waves. A wave smashed into Bruce and bashed his head against a rock. He stood up wiping the water from his face, his head bleeding profusely. "Swim, Daddy," Alexa shouted.

She pulled him behind her as he struggled to get through the waves, glancing over her shoulder as she heard a large caliber rifle shot. A bullet exploded into the water, an inch from her head. "Duck, they're using snipers."

They ducked below the waves.
 
Another bullet burst into the water close by. "We need to get further out," she shouted.

They swam until the lights on the shore were twinkling pinheads in the dark.

"Get out of the suits," she said, paddling water.

They pulled off the suits, Alexa struggling to pull it over her head and paddling at the same time, her shoulder throbbing with pain. Laiveaux helped her and they dumped the suits in the water.

“Alexa?” Bruce said, his voice anxious as he grabbed her arm.

"What?"

"Something bumped my leg."

Alexa turned around to face her dad who was paddling furiously. He had an alarmed look on his face. She dove down into the water and came straight back up. "We're surrounded by bull sharks."

Alexa ducked as she heard another shot. "Shit," Laiveaux shouted. He was clutching his shoulder, blood oozing through his fingers.

Alexa yanked her shirt off and tore it into strips. She pushed a wad of material into the general's wound, binding it as tightly as she could. She turned to Bruce. "Calm down, Daddy, you don't need to flop around like this."

"We're surrounded by bloody sharks, Alexa," he shouted, teeth chattering.

"Stay calm, Bruce," Laiveaux chimed in, not looking too confident himself.
 

Alexa dove down and came up a couple of seconds later. "Shit, the water is teeming with them."

"Okay, let's stick together. It's a myth that they'll attack-- Ow!" Laiveaux shouted, his neck muscles knotted into cords. "One bumped into me."

Bruce's teeth chattered, the cold wind whipping his hair back. "I'm freezing, how long before we die of hypothermia?"

"Fifteen minutes," Laiveaux answered.

Alexa dove down again. One of the sharks made a lazy turn and headed straight at them, opening his mouth. She only had one chance at this. She waited until he was less than two feet away from her before she fired straight at him. The bullet exploded from the barrel with a bubbling fizz, hitting the shark in the eye.
 

The beast kept coming, sinking his jaws into Bruce's leg, and Alexa shook the weapon as she tried to fire it again, but it jammed. The shark was chomping down on Bruce's leg, oblivious of its injury as Alexa jammed the barrel into his eye and repeatedly striking his snout with the palm of her hand. The three meter long brute twisted away, slamming into Alexa, then moved away at an odd angle, like he was trying to swim on his side.

The shark rolled around slowly and went belly-up. A couple of seconds later, two other sharks started attacking him, savagely chomping down on their mate, ripping chunks of meat from his side.

Alexa went up for a breath, saw Bruce's face contorted in pain. "Oh, shit Daddy, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him."

"At least I have something else to worry about than the bloody cold water," he groaned.

Alexa dove back down and wrapped strips of material around his leg, tightening them like a tourniquet. It didn't look good, pieces of flesh dangling from a gaping wound. She looked around and noticed more sharks had joined the feeding frenzy.

She surfaced again.

"Why are they thrashing around like that?" Laiveaux asked.

"I shot one of them, they're feeding on him now."

"Good," Laiveaux shouted above the howling wind.

"Bloody bastards took a chunk out of my leg," Bruce said, his eyes wide in fear and shock.

"You're fine," Alexa said. Her body was numb; she couldn't feel her face anymore.

The ducked into the water as a shot cracked and zipped into the water in front of them.
 

"Shush, I hear something," Alexa said.

They listened, trying to make out a sound above the din of the wind. "A boat, they're coming for us," Laiveaux shouted.

"Which could be a good thing," Alexa said, watching the thrashing frenzy as the dead shark was being ripped apart.