New Orleans Run

Chapter Five

Blade took several strides to the east, intending to rush to Lynx’s aid, when Ferret abruptly yelled a warning.

“Blade! To the south!”

The Warrior swung around and saw a half-dozen men dressed all in black charging toward the cabin. Each man held a weapon, either a rifle, an assault rifle, or submachine gun, and the expressions on their faces were anything but friendly. Blade whipped the Thompson up, worked the cocking handle, and fired a short burst, gratified at seeing three of the figures drop.

“More to the north, yes!” Gremlin shouted.

Both hybrids cut loose with their AR-15’s.

Gunfire erupted all around them, coming from every direction, the rounds smacking into the ground or thudding into the cabin walls.

Blade backpedaled, glancing eastward again, and discovered over a dozen of the uniformed forms coming through the weeds, far too many to try and take head-on. The three of them were drastically outnumbered and the enemy had the element of surprise. Under such circumstances only one option was viable. Retreat. “Back the way we came!” he commanded, loosing a hail of lead at the onrushing men.

“What about Lynx?” Ferret responded, and shot into the trees to the north.

Blade came to the corner of the structure and ducked behind it, firing all the while. “We’ll be back for him!” he bellowed.

“I’m not leaving him!” Ferret declared, sighting on a man in black and dispatching him with a single shot.

“We have no choice!” Blade cried. “Now move it!”

Both Ferret and Gremlin, displaying obvious reluctance, backed to the relative shelter of the north wall, where they were screened from the figures to the east and south.

“On me!” Blade directed, and ran westward as five or six bullets smacked into the wood near his head. He bent down as he sprinted to minimize his profile, and he was almost to the northwest corner when he saw four more foes emerging from the trees 40 yards distant, two white men and two blacks.

Damn.

The Warrior pressed the stock to his right shoulder and aimed high to compensate for the range, then squeezed the trigger. The model he used had been fitted with a Cults compensator and a superior-quality Lyman rearsight by the Family Gunsmiths, ensuring exceptional accuracy in the hands of a seasoned combat veteran. And when it came to warfare, Blade had more experience than most men alive. He mowed the quartet down just as they were bringing their weapons to bear. “Let’s go,” he prompted, and sped toward the woods.

Ferret and Gremlin stayed hard on the giant’s heels, providing covering fire to their rear, compelling their mysterious assailants to duck or die.

Blade expected to feel a slug bore into his back at any instant, but he reached the sanctuary of the forest in safety, and spun to protect his companions as they darted in beside him.

The gunfire had ceased.

“I don’t like leaving Lynx,” Ferret groused.

“Gremlin neither, no.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” Blade said. He distinguished men in black bearing down on them from both sides, and he turned and moved off.

“Come on.”

“What’s your plan?” Ferret inquired, complying.

“We’ll play it by ear.”

“That’s a terrific plan,” Ferret snapped. “Alexander the Great would be proud of you.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Blade asked. He vaulted a log in his path and bore to the south.

“Yeah. We should have gone after Lynx.”

“How? They had us cut off.”

“We could have mowed the bastards down,” Ferret proposed.

“Or they might have mowed us down,” Blade countered. “We can’t help Lynx if we’re dead.”

“Good point, yes,” Gremlin said.

Blade moved rapidly, repeatedly looking to their rear to check for signs of pursuit. His mind whirled with dozens of questions. Who were those guys in black? Why had those men attacked without warning? What connection did they have with the party who had sent the plea for aid?

Were they the reason the message had been sent?

“Does this happen on all your missions?” Ferret inquired.

“What?”

“Does everything usually go wrong right off the bat? I mean, we’re not here an hour and we’ve got some jerks we don’t even know trying to riddle us with holes.”

The Warrior went around a thicket and started up a low knoll. “Yeah,” he said, staring behind them yet again. “You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law, I take it?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“I bet you didn’t know that Murphy is my second cousin.”

Ferret grinned. “No, I didn’t. That explains a lot.”

“Excuse Gremlin, yes?” the humanoid interjected. “Gremlin thought Murphy is make-believe, no?”

“He is,” Blade said.

“Then how—?” Gremlin began, and fell silent when a loud whistle sounded from 20 or 30 yards to the north.

Blade reached the crest of the knoll and halted. He squatted in the cover of a verdant bush and scanned their back trail. The hybrids did likewise, one on either side.

“I can hear them,” Ferret disclosed.

“Gremlin too, yes!” Gremlin staled.

“They’re well north of us and heading in the wrong direction,” Ferret detailed, his head cocked to the right as he listened intently.

“Dumbbells, no?” Gremlin commented, and snickered.

“There must be dozens of them,” Blade said, calculating the odds and planning their strategy. “We need to know who they are and why they’re trying to kill us.”

Ferret smiled in anticipation. “We capture one?”

“We capture one,” Blade confirmed. “You two lead the way. Your hearing is superior to mine. If we can snatch a straggler, we’ll persuade him to give us information.”

“What if he doesn’t want to cooperate, yes?” Gremlin asked.

Blade’s voice became hard, almost raspy. “He’ll cooperate.”

“Let’s get cracking,” Ferret suggested. “For all we know Lynx could be in their hands by now.”

“Lynx never let himself be captured, no,” Gremlin averred.

“He let himself be captured by the Doktor, didn’t he?” Ferret responded.

“Yes,” Gremlin acknowledged.

“And he got himself caught by the Superiors, didn’t he?”

Gremlin gazed to the north. “Let’s get cracking, yes?”

Blade let the others advance several yards before he fell in. He reflected on Gremlin’s peculiar mode of speech, a consequence of operations the Doktor had performed on the humanoid’s brain. The sagacious Family leader, Plato, believed the Doktor had been conducting experiments on the area of the brain called the cerebral cortex, the part concerned with such complex mental processes as speech and thought. Somehow, the Doktor’s tampering had altered Gremlin’s ability to use proper syntax in his verbal communications. Periodically the condition went into a degree of remission and Gremlin would speak in an almost-normal manner. At other times, and for no apparent reason whatsoever, Gremlin’s speech would deteriorate dramatically.

Ferret led them to the northwest at a cautious pace, his short, wiry body navigating the rough terrain with deceptive ease, a fluidity of motion only Lynx or another bestial hybrid could hope to match.

Gremlin, while able to proceed with consummate stealth, lacked the acrobatic finesse of his diminutive friend.

Compared to them, and even with years of experience under his belt, Blade felt like a novice in the art of silent stalking. He’d never admit as much to them, and he resolved to improve until he was their virtual equal.

The forest presented a dense web of luxuriant vegetation of every type and description. Insects buzzed and flitted from plant to plant. The earlier gunfire had caused the wildlife to fall collectively silent, and the quietude of the birds and larger animals lent an eerie, somber quality to the landscape.

Blade used the opportunity to replace the partially expended magazine in the Thompson with a full one. The 30-round detachable box-type magazines were easy to eject and insert, and he drove the fresh one home with a forceful slap. The rugged performance of the Thompson had impressed him so far. Perhaps, if the gun continued to live up to its prewar reputation, he would consider using it on other missions. He liked the heavily ribbed barrel and the wooden buttstock. To an average man the submachine gun might be a bit heavy; to someone of his massive size the Thompson had the weight of a toy.

Several oak trees appeared 50 feet ahead of them. Ferret suddenly flattened and motioned for them to do the same.

Blade dropped and saw the reason.

A thin black man, garbed in the dapper black uniform, stepped into sight from behind one of the trees and surveyed his surroundings. He clutched an Ingram MAC10 submachine gun fitted with a two-position shoulder piece and a webstrap.

The Warrior trained the Thompson on the man, just in case they were spotted. But his concern proved unfounded as the man in black rotated to the north and stood there studying the woods. Why did they wear those mirrored sunglasses? Blade mused. To conceal their eyes so an enemy would never know in which direction they were actually looking? If so, whoever they worked for must be very clever.

Ferret laid his AR-15 down and gestured at Gremlin, and together they crawled toward the man in black.

Blade could do nothing but wait. He admired the skill the pair displayed, a testimony to the fact they had been created to function as perfect assassins. He scrutinized the trees on all sides, puzzled by the presence of just one foe. Where were the rest? Were there other men stationed at regular intervals?

The black man coughed lightly and cradled the MAC 10 under his right arm. He stretched, arching his back, and turned in a complete circle.

The hybrids froze in unison, their bodies flush with the ground, blending in with the grass and brush.

Evidently satisfied that he wasn’t in any danger, the man leaned against a trunk and stared idly to the west. He yawned and shook his head vigorously.

Blade noted the last act with interest. Had the ambushers been awake for an extended period, waiting for someone in particular, or had they been there waiting to see if anyone would show up in response to the distress call? The trap had been thorough, and probably Lynx heading east along the trail had caused them to close in prematurely.

Ferret and Gremlin were within 30 feet of the trees.

The Warrior felt a twinge of pain in his left side. Some months back he had been shot and sustained a terrible wound, and any strenuous exertion still aggravated it. The discomfort made him think of his precious Jenny.

She had extracted the bullet herself, doing a superb job even though she had to improvise and use a screwdriver for a probe. In another four or five months he should be as good as new.

Thinking about the wound also brought to mind all the other injuries he had sustained since becoming a Warrior. At the rate he was going, what with all the bullet holes, cut and slash marks, teeth and claw imprints, and sundry other scars, he’d be lucky to have a square inch of unmarred skin by the time he retired from the Warrior ranks. If he lived that long.

Twenty feet separated the hybrids from the man in black.

Blade forced himself to stop thinking about his lovely wife, and concentrated on covering the mutations. Of late his mental discipline had been more lax than was usually the case, and he determined to work on his self-control at every chance.

Ferret and Gremlin had now diverged, Ferret moving to the right, the humanoid to the left. The grass scarcely stirred as they advanced. Thanks to the Doktor’s manipulation of their genetic codes, they were the ultimate development in the lethal arts, living liquidators par excellence.

Blade sighted down the Thompson, then stiffened when he detected motion underneath the barrel. The next moment something began crawling up his naked forearm, and he glanced down to behold a spider the size of his fist clinging to his skin. Goose bumps broke out all over his flesh and he almost flung his arm out to dislodge the arachnid. To do so, however, might alert the man in black to the fact others were nearby, might give Ferret and Gremlin away, so he gritted his teeth and remained motionless.

The spider, with a rust color and sporting a peculiar orange design on its back near its multiple eyes, climbed in a leisurely fashion, its hairy legs rising and falling slowly.

Was it toxic?

The mere thought served to make Blade tingle all over. He watched the spider inch upward, then looked at the hybrids to mark their progress.

They were drawing steadily nearer to the guy in the sunglasses, and soon they would be within pouncing range. At that point they would be the most vulnerable and be dependent on him to down the man if necessary.

But how could he fire, with the spider perched on his arm? The slightest movement could prompt the arachnid to bite.

The spider stopped five inches from his left palm.

Blade scarcely breathed. If the arachnid stayed on his arm much longer, he’d be forced to make a decision that could cost him his life. He glanced at Ferret and Gremlin and saw them suddenly spring toward the figure next to the tree.

Just as the man turned in their direction.