Chapter 45: Chapter forty-four

Present day

 

The man was the greatest fighter alive, perhaps the greatest to ever live, but no amount of combat ability would stop a bullet. Taking on a group of opponents with automatic weapons head-on was, for that reason, not something he liked to do if he could avoid it. But here there was only one entrance and nothing to provide proper cover in the small, stone chamber. With no other option but to fight, the best plan was to do everything possible to evade fire and strike fast and with overwhelming force.

The man’s eyes seemed to lose focus and a piece of his mind entered a room in his mind palace covered in monitors, each one displaying a view of one of the men. While he was doing that, his feet propelled him forward and he went straight at them.

He hadn’t hesitated and had moved with almost blinding speed, but the men were ready for him. He made it about three steps before the first one opened fire. The roar of rapid-fire gunshots reverberating off the walls and chips of stone flew into the air where the bullets chewed up the floor.

The part of the man’s awareness tracking his attackers’ gazes and hand movements told him to step nine inches to the left, which carried him past the next burst of gunfire. A sharp jerk of his head to the right avoided another.

Then one of the men did something half clever. He closed his eyes and started firing wildly in the man’s general direction. It was a horribly inaccurate way to shoot, but it meant there was no way for the man to predict his shots in time to dodge.

If he was a religious man, he might have prayed. As it was, he just ran at the men and hoped he got lucky.

He did, mostly. One of the bullets grazed his arm, but it was nothing serious. Then, he was amongst the men and too close for the guns to be effective.

The first of the thugs tried to fight, instinctively bringing his weapon up and attempting to smash the man in the face with it. It didn’t connect and the man left him lying on the ground, bleeding to death with his own combat knife stuck in his throat.

461.

Another thug opened fire on him, ignoring the risk, but the man had seen him aim and pulled one of his comrades into the line of fire at the last possible moment. Bullets tore into the man, several getting past his body armour and entering his body.

462.

The man broke two more necks before he broke his attackers’ will to fight and they threw down their weapons and ran for their lives.

“Four hundred sixty-four,” the man said to himself.

He might have pursued, but he was sure none of them knew anything relevant, and he had to get back to Liz as soon as possible. He did take the time to throw the targeting chip to the ground and put a bullet through it though, as carrying around that kind of thing is simply poor tradecraft.

 

 

A pair of security guards ‘escorted’ Liz out of the auction area, following along after the man with the long face.

“What do we do with her?” one of them asked.

The man with the long face frowned a long frown. “Don’t know. Looks like the person winning the bid was a cop and the seller disappeared right before all the shooting started. Just bring her along for now and we’ll figure it out later.”

He seemed distracted, and the guards seemed unsure. Liz wondered whether this might be the time to try to escape. If she could get to the other guests, she might be able to blend in with them and get out.

All I have to do is get away from two armed guards, she thought. Piece of bloody cake.

She was pondering how exactly she could do that, and considering whether faking a seizure would help or just get her reduced to the status of luggage, when she heard a thud to her right.

She turned to see that the guard was gone. His colleague turned to see what had happened to him in time to see the man in black, now right behind him. Then the man hit the guard in the throat and he went down gasping for air.

Long-face turned around in time to see his guards were gone, then ran off scared.

“Thank you,” Liz said, and then, “oh, Detective Price. They know she’s police. They led her off down that way I think.”

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

The man stalked down the corridor Liz had indicated and came back a remarkably short time later with Detective Price in tow.

“You two,” he said. “Head out the way we came in. The guards there are going to be focused on keeping the police out, not you in. You should be able to get by with relatively little resistance.”

“Where are you going?” Liz asked.

“Hold on a second. You’re not leaving. You are wanted for the murder of Lance Bryson. I can’t just let you go.”

The man ignored the detective. “The Program got multiple armed men in here past security. That suggests they have another entrance. That will be where all their operatives will be going, which means it’s where I need to be.”

“What do we do if we run into more guards?”

“The detective here has a gun. I suggest using that.”

Detective Price had said gun out and she levelled it at the man. “I’m not letting you leave.”

He stared her straight in the eyes. She slowly lowered the gun.

“Argh. Fine. Just go before I change my mind.”

The man dashed off leaving the two women alone together.

“Stay close,” the detective said. “If we run into any trouble, get behind me. If I go down, you can either run or surrender. Up to you which one you choose. Got all that?”

She left the logic behind that one unsaid. If she surrendered she would live, but it might not be a life worth having.

Liz swallowed, then gave a tight nod. “Okay. Let’s go.”

 

 

The man found what he was looking for after two dead ends, one of which was literal for the guard who had been unlucky enough to be in that room. The Program seemed to have tunnelled up to the catacombs and then cut through a section of wall. A small enclave had almost its entire back wall missing, and the tunnel beyond was dark and rough. It must have been a truly staggering amount of work, and the man wondered why the Program would bother with such an elaborate ruse just to steal the targeting chip and send a few men after him with guns.

They didn’t, of course. Nothing Smythe does is ever that simple.

The man followed the tunnel through the earth, relying on a disposable phone for light. If he strained, he could hear faint sounds up ahead, but even with the resources of his mind palace, he couldn’t make out what they were.

Eventually, he came to a solid stone wall with what looked like a pool of water at its base. The man shone his phone light into the liquid. The pool sloped down and disappeared beneath the rock.

The man dipped the tip of his little finger into the pool. It was water, but it was icy cold. That would be how the Program agents were covering their escape then. They would have dry suits, underwater flashlights, and maybe even oxygen supplies ready, while any pursuers would have to contend with a blind swim of indeterminate length through water that would leech the heat from their bodies and leave them a shivering wreck.

The man began to strip off.

 

Alesha crept forward through the monastery, gun at the ready. She and Doctor Clark, once they had ditched their heels, had made it out of the catacombs without incident. Now they were back above ground, but Alesha could hear the intermittent bark of gunfire and knew that they weren’t anything like in the clear yet.

She approached a wide door and peered around it. Beyond was a thug, disguised in monks robes reloading an automatic weapon. Doctor Clark saw him too and made a stifled squeaking noise in surprise.

Alesha took a deep breath and rounded the corner, gun trained on the thug.

“Drop it!”

The man looked up and she could see indecision written on his face. Could he get his gun up and fire before she put a bullet in him. After a long moment he thought better of it, and his weapon clattered to the floor.

She kept the gun trained on him while he lay down flat on his belly and she cuffed his hands behind his back. She didn’t bother gagging him.

“Stay down,” she ordered, creeping forward and checking the next corner. They were almost out, an exit to the outside was just ahead. There was a another fake-monk with an assault rifle by the door, but his attention was taken up by shooting at the Feds outside. She should be able to get the drop on him easily enough.

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“Okay,” she breathed, whispering to Liz. “When we go through, move quickly but quietly. If we aren’t seen, wait by the door until I give the all clear, don’t want you getting shot by accident.”

Liz nodded.

Alesha stepped around the corner and padded towards the thug at the door, with Liz right behind her.

Then the man she had handcuffed in the other room yelled a warning and the man turned to face her, lifting his weapon.

Shit, she thought, should have gagged him.

 

 

In the Netherlands there is a man who holds records for immersing himself in ice baths and running barefoot marathons in the snow. He accomplishes this by controlling his body temperature through, he claims, controlled breathing and mental exercises. Whether these techniques will work for anyone is a matter of some debate, but one thing that is certain is that if someone has developed an extraordinary mental ability, Kessington Smythe will co-opt it for himself and the Program.

So, as the man stripped off in the dark and prepared to immerse himself in freezing water, part of him was in his mind palace entering the meditation room. His breathing changed and he could practically feel his nervous system adapting to what he wanted it to do. He lowered himself into the water slowly, allowing his body to acclimatize. Then, after a couple of moments to prepare, he took a deep breath and plunged into the icy depths.

He kept his phone out in front of him for as long as it held out, but it wasn’t a particularly water-resistant model and the light died after about a minute, leaving him in complete darkness. He discarded his phone and continued, finding his way through the watery passage by touch alone.

The passage narrowed and the man no longer had the room to swim properly. He was forced to pull himself through instead, gripping the rough stone with his fingertips and hauling his body forward while he pressed himself forward with his feet.

As the minutes dragged on, the man felt a burning sensation in his lungs as hypercapnia set in. He had been trained to hold his breath for extended periods of time, lasting over twenty minutes at his longest, so if he was feeling the need to breathe, the oxygen in his system must be getting dangerously low.

Panic set in then, but for the man it was not the thrumming beat of an omnipresent drum. Rather it was the tinkling of a distant windchime; noticeable, but easily ignored. He had already swam for further than he could make it back. All he could do was hope the exit was near.

His left hand reached out to pull himself onwards and broke the surface. He kicked off the stone and came through into a dark tunnel. He gulped in the air greedily, hurriedly trying to renormalize the levels of oxygen and CO2 in his body.

The tunnel was dark, but not pitch black, and the man’s eyes had had plenty of time to adjust in the water, so he was able to make out the floor sloping downwards and leading further into the earth.

He continued down the tunnel at the best pace he could manage while still remaining quiet. Water dripped off of him, mixing with blood from where he had scraped his hands and feet raw pulling himself through the water. Those drops hitting the stone seemed disproportionately loud in the stillness of the tunnel, as did the man’s breathing; still heavier than normal.

As he stalked through the darkness, he stifled a yawn. He was beginning to feel tired; his thoughts sluggish and slow.

That’s not right, he thought. He could stay awake for five days without losing much in the way of cognitive function or reaction time if he needed to. If he felt sleepy now, it wasn’t natural.

He was being gassed.

 

 

The assault rifle came up, and Alesha fired her weapon. Once, twice, three times.

Each bullet took the man centre mass, and he collapsed against the door, his hands twitching as he continued trying to raise his weapon.

Part of him was visible from the outside, and several more bullets tore into him as the Feds took their shots.

She ran to the door, her eyes sweeping the room for further threats. She seemed to be okay so she took a position by the door and called out to her backup outside.

“It’s me! Detective Price. I’ve got a civilian with me. I’m coming out.”

 “Alesha?” Mike’s voice came from outside. “Thank Christ. Come on out, we won’t shoot ya.”

A sharp intake of breath from behind her made her turn in time to see Doctor Clark being held by another guard in monk’s robes. Where he had come from, she had no idea, but he was using the doctor as a shield while he levelled a pistol at Alesha.

Alesha’s mind froze up, but her hand didn’t.

Her gun hand moved almost of its own accord. She fired and the bullet whispered past Doctor Clark’s neck and into the throat of the thug behind her. He hit the floor, choking on his own blood, and Alesha kicked his gun away from him.

She got out before anyone else could come for her, feeling slightly numb.

 

 

When Mike saw Alesha come through the door with a pretty blonde woman in tow, his heart leapt. The blonde had blood on her neck and Alesha’s face was spattered with it, though she assured him that it didn’t belong to either of them. He wanted to talk to her properly, make sure she was okay, she was his partner after all. But protocol was protocol and he barely got to speak two words to her before she was called off to talk to Marks.

He didn’t get a chance to speak to her until after she had been debriefed, cleared by a doctor, and spoken with the hostage she had rescued. And, by the time Mike got his chance to speak with Alesha, the hostage seemed to have vanished. Once Mike was sure his partner was okay, he asked her about it.

“What do you mean?” Alesha demanded. “I handed her off to the Feds. One of the local boys I think.”

“Nobody has her. They all reckon you were the last person to talk to her.”

“Shit. Then she’s been taken. We need to find her.”

“And we will,” Mike assured her. “But right now you need to get some rest. Get back to the motel and get some sleep.”

Alesha looked like she was going to argue, but she was practically dead on her feet, and she agreed to let him drive her back to the motel.

Whatever happened with the blonde, at least his partner was safe. That was something.

 

 

The man pelted down the tunnel, having abandoned any attempt at stealth and just running as fast as he could. He needed to get to the other end before whatever gas he was breathing rendered him unconscious. It probably wouldn’t kill him outright—the chemists at the Program were precise when it came to incapacitating agents—but if he collapsed here, away from medical attention in a tunnel filled with gas, he would likely never wake up.

In his mind, the man entered a room filled with blaring alarms, hyper-charging his sympathetic nervous system to try to keep himself awake for as long as possible.

He made it to the end of the tunnel and found himself in a high chamber with a ladder in the centre, leading up to the surface. He practically threw himself up the ladder, working on the assumption that the gas was probably heavier than air and the faster he could get above it, the better his chances were of remaining conscious. He could see small shafts of light peeking around the edges of a cover that was probably concealing the tunnel entrance above and he focused on getting to that.

Then, right next to it, he saw something else. Crouched in the shadows next to the exit was a CCTV camera. He was being watched.

Shit, he thought, just as the hatch above opened and the barrel of an automatic weapon poked through.

Too far to climb up, and with no room to dodge, the man did the only thing he could. He threw himself backward from the ladder, narrowly avoiding a burst of automatic fire. He flipped in mid-air and landed on his, already scraped raw, feet. A jolt of pain ran through him, but he ignored it and looked for a rock he could throw. If he was good enough, and a little bit lucky, he might be able to concuss the shooter above and give himself time to climb out.

Bullets ripped into the ground near him and the man had to dart into the shadows, getting out of the range of fire of the shooter. He scanned the ground for a projectile, but there was nothing. He best he could manage was a shard of rock ripped up by gunfire and there weren’t any that were large enough to be suitable.

He briefly considered his options. He could run back down the tunnel, try to make it through the water again. But no, even if he made it back there, the gas would take him while he was underwater and he would drown. He could try to draw the shooters fire until he had to reload, and then try to make it up the ladder while he did. But no, the ladder was too tall and there was no way the Program had left only one shooter up there. He could be cut down before he got halfway up. Really, there was only one viable option and—

The man lost his train of thought.

He blinked. He had been thinking about… something. Liz? No, that hadn’t been it. He had been thinking about tactical options. There was only one thing to do.

The man lost his train of thought again, his eyes drifting closed.

He shook himself briefly, trying to focus.

What was it I needed to do again? Oh, that’s right, I needed to—

The gas took him, and the man fell asleep.

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