Apocalypse

40

Olaf Jorgenson crouched low on the bow of his airboat as it drifted silently on the still water, ignoring the swarms of mosquitoes that hummed on the heavy air. Through the swaying reed beds that rose like islands from the water, he watched as the big man with the eye-patch sat idly on the deck of his airboat and smoked a cigarette.

Olaf scanned the island ahead and guessed that the man’s two accomplices had gone ashore. He had recognized them both, the Americans who had chased him back in Miami. He could not understand how they had arrived here in the Everglades before he had, but that could not be changed. Now his only thought was to overcome this unexpected adversity and complete his mission. Luck had favored him and he had spotted their airboat several miles back as he searched the Everglades for Charles Purcell. The news feeds that Joaquin had accessed had not been accurate enough to pinpoint the scientist’s location, but the images had been good enough to put Olaf within a few miles. Spotting the airboat with the two Americans aboard had been a shock initially, and then an opportunity.

But there was a problem.

They had guided their boat with unerring accuracy to this one tiny spit of land marooned amidst the wilderness. That could only mean one of two things: that they had already been in contact with Charles Purcell, or that somehow they had access to the same images as Joaquin Abell, visions of the future that had allowed them to find Purcell. Olaf could only assume that Joaquin’s missing camera was what had enabled them to move one step ahead of him and find Purcell in the middle of nowhere.

Olaf would no longer be able to stay ahead of them. This had to be finished now, and then he would be forced to flee back to Joaquin’s yacht. Olaf intended to ensure that he took the contentious camera with him before Purcell could hand it over to the authorities as evidence that would sink Joaquin, and with him, Olaf.

Olaf carefully used one of the emergency oars to push the airboat forward out of the dense reed bank, using his immense strength to shift the vessel and then letting the boat’s momentum on the water do the work for him. The boat drifted silently across the lagoon, closing in on the big man in the boat.

It was rare for Olaf to encounter a man who was bigger than he was, and such an event required delicacy and planning. Much of Olaf’s impressive physique had been forged by the steroids he had for years forced into his unwilling veins, and the gains he had made in musculature had been paid for by the weakening walls of his equally inflated heart. Olaf was incredibly strong, but was only able to sustain his exertions for a short duration. As he had found out to his cost years before, his labored heart’s ability to pump oxygen into his grossly overgrown muscles failed him after a few minutes and his strength vanished as swiftly as it had arrived.

A quick glance at the man ahead suggested that he was born large but did not work out. That might have satisfied Olaf, were it not for the large SEAL tattoo adorning the man’s shoulder. Impressive physical fitness and an almost psychotic will to succeed meant that this opponent would be incredibly dangerous. Worse, Olaf could not shoot him without alerting his companions.

Only one thing was in Olaf’s favor. He was approaching from behind and to the man’s right, the side obscured by the eye-patch he wore. The big man reached down into a cooler by his side and lifted out a bottle of liquor. Olaf smiled, waiting and watching as the man took a deep mouthful from the bottle and wiped his lips across the back of his forearm. A drinker. His reactions would be slowed, his judgment impaired.

Olaf looked down into the water around him. Although the surface was smooth and reflected the blue sky above, he knew that alligators and snakes swarmed in the murky depths below. To slip into the water now could be tantamount to suicide, and even if he were able to reach and board the boat ahead, doing so would quickly alert the former Navy SEAL to his presence.

His only chance was to let his own boat slip alongside and then leap across and kill the man before he could turn to defend himself. Olaf quietly slipped a huge hunting knife from a sheath secured beneath the shirt on his back, holding the blade low against his thigh as the boat drifted silently closer. Ten feet. Eight feet. Six.

The man took another long pull on his bottle, scanning the forest ahead intently, and oblivious to Olaf’s approach.

Four feet. Two feet.

Olaf crouched down, his legs coiled like giant springs beneath him.

The boats’ hulls bumped together with a dull thump.

Olaf thrust himself forward, almost spread-eagled in midair as he hurled himself onto the other boat’s deck. The big man responded instantly and whirled in his seat, with the bottle already swinging with impressive force and speed. The glass smashed into Olaf’s wrist with a jarring pain that sent the blade spinning from his grasp to splash into the water alongside the boat.

Olaf slammed his head into the man’s chest like a freight train and they smashed down onto the deck together, the big man’s head cracking against the hard deck. Olaf saw his eyes roll up into his sockets and he raised a chunky fist ready to finish him off. To his surprise, the SEAL exhaled a foul blast of alcohol fumes and his head rolled to one side.

Olaf screwed up his face in disgust. The impact had knocked the man out cold — he was probably already halfway there from the liquor. Olaf considered retrieving his knife from the water, but there was no time.

Olaf made to roll the body off the boat and into the water, but then hesitated. The SEAL probably knew the Everglades well, enough so that he could be of use if any kind of law enforcement showed up.

Instead, Olaf tore off a length of his own shirt and used it to gag the man. Then he stood up and walked across to the boat’s fuel tank, yanked the rubber feeder pipe out and strode back to the unconscious man. He heaved him onto his front and bound his wrists with the length of rubber hose, then vaulted back across to his own boat and pushed away from the shore, once again letting the momentum take him away downstream until he was sure nobody on the island would be able to hear the engine. Then he started it and turned the boat around, aiming for the far side of the island. He would come at them from there, and his first priority would be to silence Purcell.

He looked down into the hull of the boat, where a Dragunov SVU-A sniper rifle lay in its case alongside an M-16 assault rifle and a small pile of hand grenades.