The Void

CHAPTER 6

The super yacht Manhattan sliced through the warm, azure water off the continental shelf. She was 121 feet from bow to stern, sleek and sporty and from the highly sought after 3700 Fly Series range — there was a waiting list, that is, if you could come up with a spare 80 million and change.

The yacht could accommodate nine guests with four full-sized luxury cabins. She had a salon and dining area with open-plan architecture creating a sensation of endless space. Added to that, large windows on port and starboard allowed all the rooms to be bathed in natural light. She was a little slice of heaven on the high sea.

The retired senator, Robert A. Anderson, owned this particular boat. He and his wife, Gillian, had taken the Manhattan out for a spin, planning to head down to a little restaurant they knew at Coronado in San Diego. They’d stayed in radio contact, up until an hour earlier, when the boat had suddenly gone silent.

Casey Franks’ eyes were unblinking and her mouth set in a grim line as she watched the yacht begin to slow. She stopped rowing the small boat and lifted an arm to wave as the ship’s bow turned toward her. Excitement began to build in her chest.

She felt perspiration run from her scalp down her neck and then form a river along her spine from the weight of the thick wig she wore. In her ear was a small communication plug that also touched her tympanum nerve allowing it to both send and receive covert communications.

She waved as she spoke through her grin. “Two on deck, multiple movement signatures below, numbers unknown. No sign of the senator or his wife.” A device at her feet clicked madly and she reached down to read some figures and then switched it off.

“Rad count is well above background normal — the package has got to be onboard. I am locked and loaded and ready to roll, boss.”

Casey waved again. The CIA, as well as numerous other global intelligence agencies, had been monitoring the movement of the dirty bomb for the last few weeks as it made its way out of Libya and across Italy. But then it had vanished. The USA was one of the few countries that had a radiation net over its borders and coastline, whereby nothing nuclear could be snuck into the country — that was unless it was heavily shielded, as they suspected was the case here.

The Orbiting Space-Based Infrared System, SBIRS, or Sabers, to those who knew about it, could sniff a high radiation signature, but if the bomb was in a lead-lined casing, then you had to be up real close to detect it. Problem with that was, once you eyeballed it, you showed your hand, and had to be prepared for the assholes to detonate it.

All the involved countries were on a heightened alert, and when the senator’s boat went dark, it was suspected a hijacking had taken place. When looking for a large bomb delivery mechanism, air, rail, and sea are top of the list. The Manhattan would make the perfect delivery system.

Casey momentarily glanced toward the invisible shoreline, and thought about the ramifications of the weapon. A dirty bomb detonation at sea, with prevailing winds, would send a cloud of radioactive dust over a coastal city and potentially contaminate a million people.

Combined American intelligence agencies had formulated plans for recovering or neutralizing the bomb, but none could guarantee safe takedown without triggering the device. Added to that, there was no scenario where the senator and his wife came out alive.

In the blink of an eye, Intelligence handballed it to the military, who immediately speared it toward Colonel Jack Hammerson. The commander of the Special Forces arm of the secretive Hotzone All-Warfare Commandos, designate HAWCs, had a mission plan in progress in less than five minutes.

“They’re coming in nice and close to take a look, boss.” Casey flicked strands of blond hair from her eyes, and continued to wave.

Into Lieutenant Casey Frank’s ear came a deep, authoritative voice. “I can see them now. Keep them interested for a few more minutes — mission is go.”

A figure in the water, lying on the sheltered side of her boat sunk down and disappeared into the depths. Casey focused her attention on the approaching vessel. Alex Hunter, the Arcadian, would sink for another twenty feet, and then use long strokes to power toward the Manhattan — he had no air tanks as these would give a telltale bubble trail. It didn’t matter; she knew he would stay down for as long as it took.

Casey grabbed the oars and began to row gently out in front of the luxury yacht, forcing it to stop, and keeping their eyes on her. Her muscular arms and shoulders flexed and rolled with each pull, but were hidden by a cotton shirt. Also hidden was a multitude of tattoos, burns and bullet wounds, plus a ripped frame that was all bulges and sinew. Like all the HAWCs, Casey had honed herself to be a living weapon.

The Manhattan was still over a hundred feet away, and she knew that somewhere between them, Alex Hunter, her HAWC team leader and possibly the greatest soldier she had ever known, was already closing the distance.

Casey’s grin widened as she looked up at the leering faces, and she whispered through her smile.

“Wouldn’t wanna be you assholes in the next few minutes.”

Several men crowded the deck and waved, whistled and called her over.

She nodded, smiling sunnily. “Yeah, sure, I’ll join the party.” She began to row again, flicking the wig’s long hair forward and letting it fall over her face, especially on the side with the deep scar that ran from jaw to cheek and twisted her mouth into a permanent sneer.

Twenty feet down, Alex swum smoothly, reaching forward and pulling the water back along his sides. He only needed a facemask as the distance wasn’t great, and he wanted to be unencumbered when he boarded the Manhattan.

He had memorized the vessel’s schematics, as he knew he needed to move quickly and surely, because the moment he was onboard he’d have mere seconds to make the difference between death of the hostages and perhaps detonation of a dirty nuclear bomb.

Above him the water was a magnificent blue, with the golden sun almost directly overhead. But below, the rays of sunshine penetrated down another few dozen feet before the depths swallowed all light.

Alex’s neck tingled from a sense of danger before he felt the surge of water from below. The fifteen-foot great white shark rolled slightly as it passed underneath him, checking him out with one soulless black eye.

Oh shit. Not now.

The creature was more than twice as long as Alex, and outweighed him by many hundreds of pounds. And down here in its element it was a dagger-toothed torpedo. The only weapons Alex had were a range of knives fastened to his belt, but the last thing he wanted was a pool of blood — his or the sharks — spreading in the water.

He kicked harder, increasing his speed, still feeling the huge presence circling him down in the depths. He knew how big sharks attacked, diving and then coming up fast like freight trains in an ambush. He was quick in the water, but he wouldn’t stand a chance of being able to get out of the way of the massive creature rushing up from below with gaping mouth and row after row of serrated blades ready. Once it had him, then the best he could hope for was being spat out — if not, he’d lose limbs or be bitten in half.

His neck and spine tingled, and he could make out the hull of the Manhattan no more than twenty feet ahead. He’d make it to the craft, only if the shark left him alone. He used both arms and legs now to pull hard through the water, angling slightly to head for the huge transom at the boat’s rear.

He started to come up through the clear water, and he prayed that onboard the only thing that was of interest to the watching men was a small dinghy out front with a blonde woman seemingly lost at sea.

His initial plan was to ease himself up and over the transom, but right about now, he didn’t like the idea of waiting in the water with a shark closing in. He felt another surge, closer, and he looked down to see the shark turn on its side again, the eye, like black glass, fixed on him for a second or two before the giant predator flicked its tail and angled down into a dive. It had decided he could be eaten and was going to take a run at him — his time was up.

Alex tore furiously through the water coming up at the end of the transom and not stopping, but instead launching himself to land and roll along the six-foot flat diving platform until he was tucked behind the stern gunwale. There was a thud from below, probably the shark’s tail as it turned, pissed off because its meal had escaped.

Alex sucked in a few huge breaths, and turned back to the water. A gray lump surfaced. The shark had lifted its head about three feet from the water and hung there watching him.

“Sorry buddy, not today.”

The shark slowly sank beneath the surface, and Alex pulled off his mask and lay still, just letting a hand rest on the stern and allowing his senses to reach out to see if there was anyone close by. He couldn’t detect anyone, but with the throb of the idling engines so close, hearing anything was out of the question.

He rose slowly, just letting his eyes come up over the gunwale. The deck was empty so he slid over. Normally, his training dictated he move to take over the control room on the upper deck, but the nuclear bomb changed everything. He needed to seek it out. Once neutralized, the terrorists were just flesh and blood killers, and not potential mass-murderers with a weapon of mass destruction at their disposal. He made his way to the cabin doors.

Beneath his feet he felt the engines rev slightly as they’d obviously decided to move in closer to Casey. The extra noise would conceal his approach, but also mask the movement of the terrorists. He moved quickly to the galley door, and when he was just three feet from it, it opened.

A huge man pushed outside, his hands cupped around a tiny flame that he held to the tip of a dark cigarette. He froze and stared. Alex was tall at 6’2” but this guy was half a head taller.

The man reacted quickly, his coal-dark eyes going from surprise to confidence in a blink. One ham-sized fist flicked out with a straight-arm lunge punch aimed toward Alex’s throat. Alex recognized the stance and the training. This guy was Hezar-Jihadi, the Party of a Thousand Martyrs, combat-hardened fanatics whose hatred for the West was only matched by their determination to see a world governed by their laws, their religion and their leaders — anything else was a blasphemy.

Normally, the rapid punch would have crushed an opponent’s larynx, and with oxygen shut off, even if Alex stayed on his feet, suffocation would be minutes away. But the fatal mistake the terrorist made was that the confidence he had in his own abilities meant he attacked first instead of calling for backup.

To the man’s shock, Alex caught the log-like arm, yanked and twisted it, dragging the terrorist toward him. He then used the v-shape between his thumb and forefinger of his other hand to strike at the man’s neck — doing to the terrorist what he had planned for Alex.

The big guy’s cigarette shot out of his mouth like a bullet followed by an extended tongue, but then nothing else, not words, shouts, or even a breath. Alex had shut down his respiratory system. With his windpipe collapsed, only a tracheotomy would save him from strangling to death. He turned, clawing at his throat, and heading fast for the refuge of the cabins. Alex grabbed his collar, lifted the man from his feet, walked him to the side of the boat, and then flung him out over the gunwale.

Alex was about to turn away from the railing when an eruption of bloody water told him that the great white shark had been waiting just below the surface. He smiled grimly at the man’s fate.

“Welcome to America.”

The boat’s engines stopped, and Alex paused for a moment. He heard some laughing from the upper deck, and he grinned. It could only mean that Casey had convinced them to take her onboard. He hoped they liked surprises, because things were about to get real interesting for them.

Alex went through the galley doors, and his eyes immediately adjusted to the lower light. The Manhattan’s galley was open-plan, and the huge room had a bar, viewing deck, computer hub and couches all stylishly laid out. It also had blood splatter and two bodies, belly down and naked, rope looped around their necks and then tied to their wrists and ankles, forcing them both up into painful curves.

Alex crossed to them and kneeled. He already knew it was the senator and his wife, and guessed how the torture had unfolded. The wife, Gillian, had her throat cut, her face calm, almost serene as her life had leaked away. But trussed and facing her was the senator, his face monstrously beaten to be almost unrecognizable.

Alex looked from the woman to the man — Gillian would then have had her throat sliced open in front of her husband. Where the woman had accepted her fate, the senator’s battered face was twisted in agony. But Alex knew that it wasn’t the physical pain that the senator had found intolerable, but being forced to watch the destruction of everything he had loved that had broken him.

Whether the terrorists were trying to extract some sort of concession or confession from the man was unknown. But the senator had voted for increased raids on terrorist strongholds in the Middle East, so perhaps they just wished to both physically and psychologically torment him to death as payback.

Evil is real. Alex reached out to lay a hand gently on the man’s forehead. He almost recoiled as he immediately felt a shock run through him. The man’s last experiences still ricocheted around inside him like tormented wraiths shrieking in anguish and anger.

He stared down at the battered face. “Rest easy, for I am your vengeance.” Alex’s teeth ground together as he gently closed the man’s eyes.

Alex drew his hand back from the dead senator, noticed it shook slightly, and made a fist to calm it. Behind his eyes he felt a pressure building that soon began to burn.

Let me free, a small urgent voice whispered from a cage he kept locked deep in his mind. He ignored it and slowly rose to his feet and drew two of the knives that sat on his belt — long and short tanto-tipped Ka-Bar blades. The night-black hardened steel blades were laser-honed to scalpel sharpness, and didn’t lose their edge even when called upon to cut bone. He headed for the lower-deck door. His hands gripped the blades so hard the rubberized grip began to pop and protest as it was compressed.

The fury grew inside him, and so too did his senses. He could feel everything now. Several men crowded together inside working feverishly on something — the bomb — getting it ready, excited about the prospect of the death and destruction they were about to rain down on the heads of the innocent.

Not this day. He breathed through gritted teeth. And not any day.

Casey’s small boat bumped up against the huge yacht and she looked up the twenty feet to where the men hung over the edge looking down at her.

“Aren’t you boys a sight for sore eyes!” Casey called coquettishly. “Heroes come to rescue a damsel in distress!” They stared flat-eyed for a moment.

“How’s the fishing?” Casey flashed the men the biggest, flirtiest smile she could muster.

One with jug ears shook his head and then took a thick cigarette from his mouth for a moment. “No fish.”

“Haven’t you got a fish finder?” Casey looked along the length of the boat, trying to see if there were any other inquisitive eyes on her. Satisfied she looked back up at the men.

Jug-ears smirked. “I have a woman finder. And it’s pointing at you.”

“Ooh, I’d love to see it. Is it a big one?” Casey winked.

The two men conferred for a moment, guffawed and then slapped each other’s shoulders, perhaps not believing their luck. They seemed to make a decision then grinned widely down at Casey.

“We drop a ladder.”

“Yay!” Casey clapped her hands and then quickly dropped them, not wanting the men to see the gnarled knuckles and blunt fingers.

As the pair went to find a ladder, Casey hummed softly and pulled on a pair of gloves. These were no ordinary gloves, but HAWC Special Forces issue with armor plating across the knuckles and backs.

To the men it would have looked like she didn’t want to get her hands abraded from the coming ladder climb. She flexed them, smiling as her excitement peaked. Casey had been a HAWC for several years now, and though she wasn’t as tall as the male operatives of her Special Forces unit, she made up for it with a mix of ferociousness and expertise in hand-to-hand combat that made her one of the Arcadian’s first choices as backup on many missions.

“Party time,” she whispered as a ladder unfurled beside her.

Casey went up the rungs quickly, and one of the men reached down to grip one of her upper arms and pulled her over the side.

The man held on tight and frowned. Perhaps expecting to feel soft flesh, but instead finding rock-hard muscle. The jug-eared one got behind her and grabbed at her long hair planning to pull her head back. He would have exposed her throat and had her immediately in a position of submission.

But the long hair came off in his hand, and he stood staring at it for a few confused seconds as if he’d just caught a strange and disgusting species of animal.

Casey started to laugh at their expressions, and imagined the disappointment and surprise at instead of having some sort of lost bimbo woman, the person that stood before them had a white flat top, scarred face and a neck that was corded with veins and swirling with tattoos.

“Ack.” Jug-ears threw the wig to the deck. “This is no woman.” He drew a hunting knife.

The other terrorist, still holding her upper arm, went to spin her around to face him, and Casey went with it, using the momentum to come in fast. She brought the point of her elbow back hard into his eye socket. There was a wet sensation on her skin, and also the satisfying crunch of orbital bone.

Before she let him go, she jerked his arm straight, and then brought the same elbow point down on the back of his elbow, crunching the joint.

“Ouch.” She grinned. “You like that?”

He howled and backed up, one arm hanging useless and the other hand over his eye. Before he was out of range, Casey shot out a roundhouse kick, knocking him over the side to the water.

She turned toward Jug-ears, her face pulled into a smirk. He lunged with the blade, and it shot forward toward her stomach. Casey used a flat strike to deflect the thrust, and then grabbed his wrist and twisted it, hard and fast. She held him, his arm at an odd angle, so she could simply reach down to yank the knife from his hand.

“Should have gone fishing, asshole.”

She wanted to take the blade and bury it into one of his jug ears, but her primary orders were to secure the wheelhouse — and she still had questions for them.

“It’s your lucky day.”

She curled one hand into a fist, and smashed it down on the bridge of his nose. The armor plated HAWC glove was like a house-brick and her arm a pile driver. Jug-ears was smashed to the deck and Casey crouched beside him. She put a hand over his mouth, raised the man’s knife and then slammed it down on his hand, spearing it to the wooden deck.

She ignored the muffled scream, and in Arabic, she whispered through a terrifying smile.

“Listen and live; are there any others like you in the wheelhouse?” She took her hand away from his mouth.

The man looked up, blood running thickly down his chin from his shattered nose. He gritted bloody teeth and began to curse in Arabic.

“I see.”

Casey grabbed his skewed nose and twisted, crunching the already broken cartilage. He began to howl and she clamped her other hand over his mouth.

“Shush, shush, there.” She leaned closer. “Now, you want to try that again?”

She began to twist once more, but he shook his head.

“No one there,” he hissed.

“Good boy.” She stood, looking down. “Hey, you forgot to show me your woman finder.” She chuckled for a second or two, before smashing her armor-plated fist down like a sledgehammer onto the back of his skull.

The base of his head dented inwards, and the man started to convulse.

“Oops.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”

She shoved the body over the side, and then sprinted up the steps to the upper-deck wheelhouse, saw it was empty, and pressed the stud at her ear.

“Wheelhouse is ours.”

After hearing Casey tell him the boat wasn’t going anywhere, stage one was now complete, and Alex placed a hand against the woodwork. He could sense the men inside — six of them — one would be a technician, the other five would be the heavy hitters, men prepared to brutally kill or die in the name of what they believed.

He inhaled slowly through his nose, smelling the faint trace of ozone in the air — he didn’t need a Geiger counter to tell him there was high-grade enriched plutonium and an initiator being assembled behind the door.

Alex knew the components were safe to transport when kept separated. But once they were put together as a single device, the risk of detonation went up exponentially. You only constructed a tactical device when detonation was imminent. That told him the terrorist cell believed they were geographically in place and just about ready.

The other thing he knew was that the amount of leakage he could sense meant the men inside were as good as dead, and they probably couldn’t care less, as the Manhattan would be vaporized anyway. In a way, they would be the lucky ones, as a dirty bomb wasn’t designed to contain the initial uranium collision that triggered the nuclear explosion. Instead it was meant to break apart immediately and disperse its toxic particles.

The impact blast would be a lower intensity, but the high lethality factor came from the rapidly outward-spreading cloud of deadly radioactive material. Once it touched the skin, or was embedded in the respiratory system, then depending on dose, it either killed quickly or slowly and agonizingly over a few weeks. It would even corrupt waterways and the ground soil for generations.

Alex heard the excitement and good humor in their voices. Perhaps at the thought of hundreds of thousands dead, untold billions in clean-up costs, and the only casualties for the terrorists would be this one boatload of fanatics. It would be a massive strategic and propaganda win.

He counted down, feeling his heart rate rise as everything around him seemed to slow. He visualized what he needed to do. Bottom line, it all boiled down to one thing — keep them away from the detonation switch.

He sucked in a breath, gripped his blades, and charged the door, exploding it open. There was that split second of frozen shock, like a flashbulb going off but it broke quickly.

The men were professionals, and weren’t stunned to inaction by the sudden appearance of the near naked intruder. Instead, they all leaped into action. Some dove for cover, most reached for weapons. For Alex, the scenario confirmed what he had sensed — six men, five big and hard-looking, and one down kneeling beside a device that looked like a huge misshapen gas cylinder.

They came fast, two trusting their bare hands and the others waiting their turn with guns or perhaps hesitant to fire near the device. One screamed for Khaled, obviously the technician, to continue his work. The smaller man turned back to his bomb, his hands working furiously as he tried to shut everything else out.

The first man swung a big, looping right cross, and Alex allowed the arm to pass over his shoulder so he could swing back with his fist to embed the short Ka-Bar into his temple with a wet crunch. He let the fast-moving body continue past him to crumple against the wall.

Alex had already decided there would be no prisoners, no surrender, there would only be death — the ghosts of the senator and his wife demanded it. Those who made fear will know real fear this day, he thought as he increased his speed.

Like an engine moving to higher revolutions, Alex’s mind and body worked many times faster than his opponent’s. A hand came down on one shoulder, trying to turn him around, he shrugged it off, ducked under a knife and then came back up with an uppercut to his attacker’s jaw, not pulling his punch, driving the man’s mandible bone back and up into his skull. The dead body flew up to strike the low ceiling.

Then the gunfire began. Bullets flew, striking metal and wood, ricocheting or punching holes through the walls, floor, and ceiling. The overhead light exploded, and only beams of sunlight remained from the porthole-sized windows. The smell of cordite and dust, woodchip and gunsmoke filled the crowded room with a blue haze.

For Alex, the darkness moved the odds even more in his favor, and he dove, rolled, and came up in front of one of the shooters to immediately bury his longer blade into the man’s forehead.

Bullets flew indiscriminately and there came a sting of pain across his cheekbone, and then the meat of his shoulder felt like a horse had just kicked it. He twisted away, scooping up the fallen terrorist’s body with his blade still extruding from the face, and flung it back to where tiny gouts of flame indicated the shots were coming from.

There was a grunt and the shooter was knocked down. Alex dove at him, just as he was pushing his comrade’s dead body from himself. Alex’s weapons were gone, but like most in the Special Forces, his body was a weapon, and he could use what he had — in this instance, the top of his head.

Alex used his momentum to ram his forehead into the front of the man’s face, flattening it between him and the wall. The terrorist’s arms dropped, and Alex snatched a long and heavy hunting knife from the man’s belt.

The remaining terrorist had given up on a direct attack on Alex and instead lurched for the bomb. The device initiators were simple on homemade tactical weapons — you just needed to fire a pellet into a larger ball of high-grade fissionable material, like plutonium. The high-speed collision generated a reaction that would continue until detonation. The effect was inevitable and devastating. A homemade high-velocity mechanism — similar to a gun — would do it. It only needed one thing — a trigger.

Alex saw the red, thumb-sized button on top, and the huge man closing in on it while the technician kneeled back, his work done, and his eyes wide.

“Stop!”

The force of Alex’s voice made the man pause. His eyes locked with Alex’s; his hand outstretched and only feet from the trigger.

Alex, just a yard away, pointed with his blade, and spoke slowly and clearly. “First I’ll take the hand.” He dropped his arm, keeping the knife down at his side but blade side pointed up.

The man stared for another moment before his lips begin to curl up at the corners.

“Allah Akhbar!” he screamed and then lunged at the button.

Alex swept the blade upwards faster than the eye could follow. The hand and forearm separated just below the elbow, with the hand spinning in the air like a wet glove. Blood spurted, covering the cowering technician who still kneeled before the bomb.

The terrorist’s eyes went wide as he looked at the spurting stump for a moment, before he gripped it and stared to yell. Insanely, his eyes went back to the trigger.

“And then I’ll take the rest.” The next sweep of Alex’s blade and the man’s yell was also cut off as his head fell back on the remaining skin flap of his near-severed neck.

Alex dropped the now sticky blade to the side. The room was now silent save for the occasional drip of blood, the settling of last breaths in collapsing bodies, and the groan of splintered decking wood.

Alex looked down at the technician who had his hands up, eyes round as silver dollars.

Kill him too.

Alex frowned. “No.”

“Say again, boss?” Casey’s query came back immediately into his ear comm.

“Where are you?”

“Top deck, doing some housekeeping,” she said casually.

“Good; device secured, coming up in a second or two.” Alex looked back down at the technician.

“I surrender,” the man said softly.

Kill him — remember the senator.

Alex recognized who it was, or what it was. It was from his Id, the one he called The Other, the creature that lurked there and fed on violence. He had carried it ever since his cure — the Arcadian treatment, the experimental formulae administered to him had given him back his mind and body following a catastrophic battlefield injury. But it had released something from his deep subconscious. Something near primordial in its lust for brutality and blood.

He stared down at the small man as the thing in his mind exerted pressure on his will. He’d mostly learned how to cage and control The Other. But violence freed it and once escaped, all it wanted was blood and more blood.

The technician lowered his hands slowly, and let them rest on the edge of the device.

Alex touched the communication pellet at his ear again. “Franks, call in immediate evac.”

He looked back at the man, who smiled up nervously. His eyes shifted, and Alex could see the bloom of heat on his cheeks as his blood pressure rose.

The technician licked his lips. “I will tell you everything.”

“I know you will,” Alex said.

The man’s eyes dilated. His hands were mere inches from the trigger. He licked his lips again.

“Please.” The man shook his head, but his hands seemed to move a fraction closer to the trigger.

Or did they move? Alex couldn’t tell if they really moved, or he only wished they had.

You see? Take your eyes off him, and he’ll detonate it.

Alex crushed his eyes shut, and reopened them, trying to blink away the devil inside.

He’s laughing at you, just like he was laughing when they tortured her, the senator’s wife, and then butchered him.

Did the technician’s hand edge closer again?

Of course it did, the voice whispered urgently. They trussed the senator and his wife up, and then made him watch her bleed out. Oh, how they laughed as he begged for her life.

Alex’s hand bunched into a fist.

Two minutes later Alex bounded up to the control deck. Franks turned. “Captain on the bridge.” She grinned.

“What have we got?” Alex asked as he wiped bloody hands on a towel he had picked up.

“Two choppers inbound; one HAWC and one Coast Guard. The CG guys also have a containment team and will take control of the vessel once the bomb is removed. And then we both get to spend hours in decontamination and debrief.”

He nodded. “Perks of management.”

“I’m in management?” Casey’s grin dropped as she saw the ripped skin on Alex’s face and red-ragged hole in his shoulder.

“Trouble?”

“Nothing I couldn’t deal with.” He shrugged. “No survivors.”

She grunted. “They were dead the moment we boarded.”

Alex threw the towel into the corner and stared out at the horizon. “No, they were dead the moment they boarded.”

Captain Geoff Jackson and his containment team were dropped onto the Manhattan’s deck. He had been told to expect two waiting Special Forces operatives. One was a tall male, in bathing trunks, looking like he was carved from stone and with eyes that went through him like lasers. The other a stocky woman, he guessed, with a scarred face and more muscles than he had.

He saluted. “All threats neutralized?”

“Confirmed; the Manhattan is yours.” The tall man returned the salute, and then he and the woman turned to jog toward a black — and insignia-free — waiting helo.

Another larger, heavy duty H-53 US Marine Sea Stallion chopper hovered close by, waiting to lift off the disarmed nuclear package when Jackson’s team had secured it.

Jackson stood with hands on hips as the Special Forces chopper left. The guy never introduced himself, but he’d heard the stories. He heard that the operatives sent in were a group called the HAWCs and when they were called in, the only thing left to do was cart out the bodies.

But there was one HAWC who was near legendary, and it was the eyes that gave the guy away. They were said to be like twin windows to hell. And after standing before the man, he’d looked into them, and known it was true.

So that was him, the Arcadian. He’d heard about him, but like most didn’t even think he was real, instead some sort of made-up story about a soldier that couldn’t be killed to bolster support in the ranks.

The guy was a one-man weapon of mass destruction. Before joining the Coast Guard, Jackson had faced enemy fire over Afghanistan, and dropped into some real wild shit in his military days. But something behind Hunter’s eyes unsettled him. Maybe all the weird stories were true, he exhaled. Just glad he’s on our side. He turned to his team and circled a finger in the air.

Jackson followed his team as they lugged a huge lead-lined box down to the lower deck where Hunter said he had left the device. Their own disposal technician went through the galley doors first.

“Jesus Christ.” The man recoiled back out the door, now with an arm up over his lower face.

“What?” Jackson unclipped his sidearm and pushed past him. He froze in the doorway as waves of revulsion swept over him. The smell was the first thing — wood chips, cordite, blood and other body fluids. Then the visuals kicked in. Dead and broken bodies were everywhere — five, six, seven, he had no idea how many corpses at this point. Some were missing limbs, another lay back with eyes open and a knife protruding from his forehead, and in one case, a skull near squashed flat.

“What the fuck did this?” his technician whispered. He looked at Jackson, his eyes now haunted. “Did those two HAWCs do this?”

Jackson shook his head slowly. “Nope, I’m betting just one of them. These assholes just pissed off the wrong guy.” Jackson tried to only breathe through his mouth. “Forget about it. We need to secure the device and get the fuck out of here. The mess is someone else’s problem.” He turned. “Do your job, people.”

The technicians carefully entered the room followed by the box carriers.

“Little help here, boss.” The technician pointed.

Jackson swallowed down some bile, and crossed to the device. There was a body slumped over it, its hands lying on either side of the trigger, but with the top of its head caved in to nose level. It looked like someone had pounded down on it with a sledgehammer.

Jackson lifted a leg to kick the dead body back off the device. He thumbed toward the bomb. “Now hurry the fuck up.”

Jackson looked slowly around the room; a cordite fog still hung in the tight space, and rods of bright sunlight cut through it. There were bullet holes in the ceiling, floor and every single wall.

Just how the fuck do you stand in here and survive that? He shook his head. Easy; you send in a soldier they say couldn’t be killed.