Judgement and Wrath

40

The bang of a gun happened so close by I could have sworn that I felt the pressure of displaced air in my inner ear. It took less than a moment for it to register that the gun had been fired many yards to my left and it was an echo effect of the rippling grasses that made it sound so close.

Dantalion had made an effort at concealing the car, but I'd discovered the abandoned car within minutes of disembarking from the chopper. I checked it for Bradley's corpse, and — thankfully — found it empty. Two separate trails led away through the tall grass and at random I chose the nearest to follow. When I'd dropped from the helicopter I'd sunk almost to my knees into viscous mud. Water had splashed up my body and I had to take out the Ka-bar knife and wipe it clean on some scrub. It made sense to keep hold of it. My SIG was in my other hand. I moved through the green ocean in a crouch with both my weapons poised for killing.

The last time I'd stalked an enemy through grasses like these was on an island in the Indian Ocean. Sinhala villagers had been butchered by a faction of terrorists and my team was sent in to punish those responsible. The terrorists were a particularly devout group of fanatics prepared to die for their beliefs. They were known to carry cyanide capsules, preferring suicide to capture. It was a good compromise. We caught the murdering pigs and made them chew on their own capsules, but still shot them in their final seconds. Sounds brutal, but the sight of headless women and children is enough to make you forget your humanity.

So does an old lady sprawled across her own table with a bullet through her heart.

Moving through the whispering grasses, I thought back to how Rink and I, and half-a-dozen of our comrades, had used the cover of the elephant grass to get so close to the men we hunted that we could've reached out and snatched them one by one. It was the same now. I'd moved to within a couple of yards of Dantalion and the white-faced freak wasn't even aware of my presence.

He was pointing his gun down at the floor, and it took me a moment to realise that Bradley was there, concealed from my view by a dip in the ground. Dantalion leaned over him, and for the briefest time I saw one of Bradley's arms waving him back. He was still alive then. Dantalion fired his gun again. Bradley began screaming. I lifted my own SIG, only for the damn thing to jam on me. Bradley was still shouting, even after Dantalion shot him a third time, and I guessed that the man was torturing Bradley by shooting his extremities. I had moments to save Bradley, the seconds ticking down. However, with my gun jammed I had no other weapon than the Ka-bar. I could throw the knife, but there was always the chance that I'd miss. Then it would be my bare hands against Dantalion's gun, and bullets would always be faster than my fists.

It was a risk, but I didn't think that Dantalion was ready to kill Bradley yet. I slipped backwards into the longer grass, giving me the cover I needed while I disengaged the slide on my gun. I'm a fan of my modified SIG-Sauer because it has no safety to snag on clothing, and the sights are removed for the same reason. Normally it serves me well. I could fire a thousand rounds in quick succession and it would never jam. It was pure bad luck that the gun had failed me this time at the very moment I needed it most. Typically, I found that it was the bullet and not the gun that had let me down. I quickly ejected the jammed round, then racked the slide a second time, ejecting a second. Happy that the gun was good to go, I moved back towards Dantalion.

Both their voices were raised. Bradley was more angered than terrified and he was goading Dantalion with insults about his heritage. Dantalion was rising to the bait. His face looked like molten wax as he stepped over the top of Bradley. It was now or never.

I fired.

So did Dantalion.

But I had fired first and my bullet hit him in the meat of his right shoulder. Blood puffed into the air. Dantalion was knocked sidelong and his finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, firing off round after round. He made a high-pitched howl and toppled out of sight. I heard a splash and saw a gout of dirty water erupt into the air. The stench of rotting vegetation filled my senses.

Immediately I came out of hiding. My bullet had hit the killer, but it wasn't a mortal wound. Only once I had put a wad of lead through his skull or his heart would I relax. I moved from the grass on to an embankment over a drainage ditch where I saw Bradley had survived. He was sorely wounded through his right leg, but he'd live.

'Did you get him?' he asked hopefully.

'Not as clean as I wanted to.'

I stepped towards the ditch.

The water was putrid, murky and full of weeds. Scum on the surface had been broken and an undulating circle showed where Dantalion had gone under. There was no sign of him. Part of me hoped that he'd been entangled in the weeds and drowned, his lungs filling with the rancid water, but then a greater part wanted to kill him outright. Things had become personal between us.

Three times I fired into the water. Maybe it was a waste of ammunition, but if he was down there I didn't want him coming back uninjured. I waited for blood to find its way to the surface, but I saw no sign of it. Dantalion had used the dirty water for cover. He'd have to come up soon, and close by, but it was awkward to cover two directions at once.

'Where is he?' Bradley hissed.

'Quiet,' I snapped. I took a step backwards so that I didn't offer a target from below the water, then stood poised with my SIG, waiting for the tell-tale eruption of water as Dantalion would make his play.

But then something intervened to take away all hope of hearing Dantalion resurface. The shriek of turbines and the whop, whop, whop of rotor blades were suddenly horrendously loud above me. My first thought was that Kaufman had returned to give support from the air. But that summation lasted only as long as it took for the pilot on a loud hailer to shout orders at me.

'This is the FBI. Lower your weapon or we will be forced to shoot.'

It was a sleek black craft. One of the McDonnell Douglas 530s that SAC Kaufman had brought in for back up. The 'Little Bird' hung in the air and an FBI sharpshooter sat in the doorway with his scope aimed directly at my chest.

'Drop your weapon!'

Bad luck was coming my way in spades that day.

To the chopper crew I was the one standing over a severely wounded man and it must have looked like my gun that was responsible for shooting him. Fair enough under the circumstances, but no way was I about to give up my weapon; not when I knew that Dantalion was close by and would be seeking revenge.

It left me only one recourse. I rushed headlong into the long grass. The sharpshooter immediately fired and high velocity rounds peppered the earth behind me and cut fronds from the grass so that they sifted around me. I ran harder. The chopper had the advantage of a hawk's-eye view, not to mention a heat-seeking FLIR scope that would pick me out in seconds, but to stand still meant giving up my weapon and leaving me vulnerable to the killer under the water. I ran full sprint, slashing at the tough grass with my Ka-bar, trying to get out of the line of sight of the chopper pilot. It would take him the best part of thirty seconds to bring the chopper about, realise I was out of sight, then decide to switch to the heat-seeking camera on the nose of the cockpit. In that time I would be in a more opportune position to protect myself from the over-eager sharpshooter.

The loud hailer sounded again and the McDonnell Douglas swooped overhead, the downwash of the rotors knitting the grass over my head. As soon as it was beyond me I turned on my heel and sprinted back to Bradley.

Bradley had heaved himself up on to his elbows in the few seconds I'd been gone. I crashed out of the long grass and skidded to a halt at his side. His face was full of pain, and not a little bewilderment.

'What are they doing?'

'They think I'm the fuckin' bad guy,' I told him. And I was going to have to put them right. The problem being I still had a wounded man to protect from his would-be killer. 'Sorry, Bradley, but this might hurt.'

I grasped him under his armpits, pulled him bodily on top of me so that he was sitting in my lap like an overgrown child. Then I jammed the Ka-bar into the earth beside me, and held my right arm high, so that the sharpshooter could see I had my finger through the trigger guard, but that my SIG was suspended upside down and no immediate threat.

'Holy shit!' Bradley said, with the realisation that I was going to use him as a shield. 'What if they shoot me?'

'They won't do that,' I told him, confidently. 'And anyway, you're wearing a Kevlar vest.'

'They could hit my head!'

'Nah, they'll fire for centre mass. Only sure way of hitting the target.'

'What about the killer? He won't think twice about shooting me in the head.'

'Then you'll just have to count on me getting him first.'

'Goddamn?…'

'Yeah,' I agreed. 'Not good odds, Bradley, but it's all we've got at the minute.'

Then I told him what I wanted him to do.

We sat like that until the gunship did a loop and returned to its starting position. The chopper hovered over us and once again I was in the sights of the sniper scopes. My head was the only visible target, but my emphatic gesturing with the upside-down gun meant that I wasn't going to experience my last moments with the smell of Bradley's fear in my nostrils.

A second 'Little Bird' screamed into view. This one was about two hundred yards out, and it swept over the open field from the west. Passing over the top of the first chopper, it tilted and raced off over the long grass behind me. The combined roar of both choppers drowned out both Bradley's and my exhortations for them to back off.

Out of the side door of the nearest chopper, a black garbed Hostage Rescue Team trooper rappelled to the floor. He was armed with an assault rifle and he took up a crouched covering position while two more members of the team dropped from the guts of the chopper like large black spiders on fat webs. Once the two exchanged positions with him, the first agent came towards us, his gun braced to his shoulder. The 'Little Bird' swooped away and finally I could hear myself think.

The FBI agent's voice rang loud and clear.

'Drop the weapon, Hunter. Now!'

I wasn't surprised he recognised me. He was one of the men SAC Kaufman had been communicating with from the headset. Whatever Kaufman had told him, he wasn't taking any chances. Truth was, even with my gun in an awkward upside-down position, I could manipulate it faster than the human eye could follow and could've shot him.

'Lose the fucking weapon.' To emphasise the command he leaned into his rifle so that it drew a bead on my forehead.

'The killer is still out there,' I shouted back. 'I wounded him, but he's still dangerous. I'm not dropping my gun.'

'The perp's our problem now. I have orders from SAC Kaufman to make you stand down.'

'Bradley is my problem, and I don't stand down until I know he's no longer in danger.'

Switching tack, the anonymous agent said to Bradley, 'Mr Jorgenson, we are here to protect you. You need immediate medical assistance. We can't offer that while Hunter is armed. Tell him to stand down.'

'Look,' I said. 'We're on the same side here. Let's cut the crap and get Bradley the hell away from here. I'm going after Dantalion.'

'You aren't going after anyone.' He'd taken another step forward. The two back-up agents had also moved to flank me. I was the proverbial fish in the barrel. But out there in the water lurked a more dangerous creature in need of spearing.

Rising up from behind Bradley, I lifted the SIG so it was clear to all. 'I'm going to holster my weapon, but that's as far as it goes. You can load Bradley into one of those birds, but I'm staying.'

'Step away from Mr Jorgenson,' said the first agent as though I hadn't spoken. 'The FBI will deal with this situation now. You do not have official sanction in this matter, Hunter. You are no longer on active duty and do not work with our government's agreement. If you refuse to step away you will be arrested for obstructing a federal agent.'

I stepped away.

I pushed the SIG into the waistband at the back of my jeans. One of the HRT agents came and laid a hand on Bradley's shoulder. He took a grip on the cloth of Bradley's shirt and pulled him round and away from me. As if I was the bad guy. The other two covered me with their rifles, but I was gratified to note that neither tried to disarm me. Not immediately.

I indicated the Ka-bar, hilt deep in the silt. 'I'm taking that as well.'

I stooped and picked up the knife. As I rose from my crouch I was already pivoting. The Ka-bar is a man-killer. To kill is its primary function, and all other applications of the fighting knife are side-products of its design. Not that I was about to kill an FBI agent in the correct execution of his duty. I used only the butt-end to thrust into the midriff of the man nearest me. He was wearing armour, but my blow was delivered with all the power of my upswinging arm and the force went directly through the vest and into his internal organs. Wind rushed out of his wide open mouth, even as I whipped the rifle out of his grasp and turned it on the first agent. I hurled the rifle at him, end over end. His reaction was to bat it away with the barrel of his own gun. And into the space he'd left me I stepped and launched a kick that caught him in the juncture of his thighs. He was wearing a box, but it didn't make a difference. Not when my shin lifted him a hand's width off the floor. I jumped in as he landed on his face, kicking away his gun with the side of my foot.

One and a half seconds isn't long in any violent confrontation. Viewed in afterthought it's amazing how rapidly a tableau can change. But there was a third armed agent to deal with.

'Now, Bradley,' I yelled.

Bradley immediately became less than the crippled weight he seemed. He threw his arms round the man supporting him, grappling the agent's rifle so that it was wedged between them. Bradley continued to drive into the man, and they went down on the ground, rolling in spongy earth. I charged over and grabbed the man's rifle away from him. Then I spun so that I was covering them all with the levelled rifle.

'OK, boys,' I yelled. 'The deal's the same. You get Bradley out of here, I go after Dantalion.'

The first agent was the first to recover from our attack. 'You have assaulted FBI agents in the execution of their duties. It is a federal crime, Hunter. You'll be arrested for this.'

'Get a fuckin' life,' I snapped. 'We all know how this is gonna go down. I'm leaving. You lot get the fuck out of here. You tell Kaufman I escaped. I've gone after the demented killer we all want to see dead. Where's the fucking crime in that?'

I threw the gun aside, took out my SIG and raced away. None of them lifted a weapon, so it seemed they'd seen sense in my words.

I'd seen something too. Way ahead of me. A pale blur of a face turned my way. A dark-garbed figure loping across the field towards the huge buildings on the horizon.