ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (44 page)

And out came al-Sif – scimitar first.

* * *

In the rear of the cabin, just ahead of the DNA sequencer, Predator and Misha continued to hurl each other around like dinosaurs, and give and receive blows that would kill mortals – with Misha still getting the worst of it. But he at least had the satisfaction that the plane had been stopped from taking off. When it stopped, skidded, and turned, he and Pred had both briefly tumbled forward, nearly on top of each other. But now they were both up and back at it – Godzilla and Mothra threatening to take all of Tokyo down around them.

As they battled, they had to step around the unconscious and bound body of Handon, still lying where he’d been thrown. Pred stepped around him to avoid hurting him, Misha to avoid tripping.

Misha was taking longer each time to rise up from under Pred’s man-killing blows. And when it looked like this could actually be it, and the giant evil bastard might finally die – the Russian seemed to remember something, and pulled out a second knife. Pred’s eyes narrowed as he recognized the distinctive taper of the blade with its minimal hand guard. It was a six-inch Mercworx Vorax combat knife.

It was Handon’s motherfucking knife.

“See something familiar, brother?” Misha said.

And Pred’s face, already streaming with blood from the knife wound back in the truck, went bright red – and he went ballistic. He charged in, muttering, “You gimme that back right now, you cocksucker.” Misha reversed the knife into an overhand grip and launched a right-handed slash at the incoming giant.

Pred caught Misha’s knife hand mid-air with his own right hand.

The knife stopped between them, both their arms locked, tendons straining and biceps bulging. It was like Handon and Fick’s habitual arm-wrestling handshake – except with bloody murder as the subtext, rather than brotherhood. And bigger biceps. For a moment, neither could overpower the other.

They were locked in a death grip.

* * *

Vasily climbed out the cockpit of the hovering Black Shark and leapt down onto the roof of the air traffic control tower, even as Nina pedal-turned, dropped her nose and swooped away again.

There was a service ladder down to the main level, where he found an observation deck, and most of the glass around the control room smashed out. With all the glass on the ground, it would have been foolhardy to lie down. But he didn’t need to. He got himself emplaced, upright, with his rifle braced on the railing.

The position was perfect.

The plane was heading nearly straight toward him – and, assuming Misha hadn’t already taken it, would soon be rolling right by. And whether the men on board took the plane, or Nina merely stopped it again…

Vasily didn’t intend to let his nemesis walk away.

* * *

From the flight deck, Hailey also had a commanding view of what lay ahead, despite the continuing rain-splatter on the windshield and the fading light. She saw the Black Shark blast over the top of them, then climb and bank left, going into a hover over the control tower.

That doesn’t look good…

But what looked even worse was when the cursed thing turned right and dove again, going into another menacing static hover – once again right at the end of the runway.

I guess runways work in both directions for guys blocking it, too.

Hailey looked over her shoulder for her dog-faced, bullet-magnet colleague. But all she saw was the back of some dude with muscular bare arms swinging a sword.

And then she had to face forward again.

The game of chicken was back on.

Rematch, bitches…

* * *

Kate couldn’t help looking over Warchild’s shoulder. Instinctively, he ducked – and al-Sif’s Moorish scimitar whistled over his head and thunked into the bulkhead. Al-Sif pulled it free and reset as the Russian backed into the aisle between the seats, bringing his shovel up.

Now it was some kind of fucked-up sword fight – but whatever training Spetsnaz got on those shovels, it wasn’t equal to the time al-Sif had put in. As steel clanged and sparked, he had the Russian back-footed and backing away down the aisle, into the open area. Kate bounced to her feet and followed, but couldn’t get around al-Sif to help. As soon as they passed the seats, she dashed around their whirling, slashing bodies, looking for a weapon.

Al-Sif was the superior swordsman – but Warchild was meaner and trickier. He feinted, stepped out of the way of a sword counter-strike, then came in right behind it with his sharpened shovel, swinging right to left, two-handed, with all his power. He caught al-Sif just below his vest – and opened his midsection from one end to the other, at a depth halfway to his spine.

But before al-Sif could fall, a sharp crack sounded, and Warchild fell forward onto him, knocking them both to the deck. Behind him stood Kate – holding the cricket bat. She pulled the grievously wounded al-Sif out from under the unconscious Warchild, dragged him over to the casualty collection point, which he had already basically fallen in, and laid him down beside Jake.

“Don’t put me here,” al-Sif said. “He’ll wake up and cut my throat.”

“No less than you deserve,” Kate said. “Hiding in the lavatory? Seriously?”

“I was guarding the cockpit. It was an ambush.”

Kate started to protest. But, then again, it had worked.

“And that is three times I’ve saved your life.”

Kate still didn’t like it, but knew it to be true. And maybe this time she had to believe he’d meant it. That he was no longer merely looking out for himself. But then she heard Hailey shouting to her from the flight deck: “Army! I need your ass up here – now!”

Al-Sif’s eyes were glazed, and it looked like he was using his arm to keep his insides in. “My rifle – it’s in the bathroom.”

“You mean Kwan’s fucking rifle,” Kate said, standing up.

“You are a headstrong woman. Just do not miss.”

* * *

Right arms still locked, Pred punched Misha in the side of the head with his left, with his full strength. Misha did the same, a mirror image. Neither tried to duck, or block – just
boom
,
boom
,
boom
, each intent on caving in the other’s skull. Blood and sweat streamed and arced off them, both grunting and cursing.

Finally, they both paused one second for breath.

Pred looked into Misha’s eyes and he saw something no one in living memory had seen there before.

Fear.

But that only lasted for a half-second, and then it was gone, wiped cleanly away. And in its place, as if the fear had never been there, Predator now saw… nothing.

Certainly no compassion or humanity. Nothing recognizably human. Absolutely nothing but icy resolve. A total commitment to victory, at any cost – his own life, anybody’s life. For him, life was not only cheap – but utterly valueless. This was a kind of deadness of the soul that was even colder, even stronger, than death itself.

And Pred knew nothing could constrain or stop this man – other than total obliteration. He would have to be completely destroyed.

Predator was going to have to burn him all the way to the ground.

* * *

Misha also looked into Predator’s eyes. He was looking for something in particular himself. And he found it.

For a fraction of a second, Pred’s eyes had darted to the knife locked between them. And then they flashed down to the helpless American commander on the floor. And what Misha saw there wasn’t love – love for his commander, love for his friend, love for his teammate. No – what Misha saw was:

Weakness.

* * *

The middle of the plane cabin was pure carnage. Baxter was trying to come around, his head lolling. He was also bleeding from the face and arm, as he shook his head and tried to rise to hands and knees.

Just ahead of him, behind the seats, Zack, Jake, and now al-Sif lay in various stages of bleeding to death. Behind them, Warchild was face down on the deck, unmoving. Aft of him was Wesley, also out cold. Most of the deck underneath all of them was awash with blood, not all of it from Zack’s surgery earlier.

Just aft of all the bodies, Fick and Badger were back down on the ground, locked in a lethal grapple, rolling and spitting, and maneuvering for position with their blades, each knife hand held at bay by the opponent’s left.

And when Baxter’s head finally stopped spinning, he could see… Warchild, waking up and rising up again. Jesus, that dude was just fucking unkillable. Then again, blood dripped down the back of his head and he looked dazed, and not enormously combat effective.

He ignored Baxter, who still couldn’t get up – and his eyes went forward, all the way to the front. When Baxter followed his gaze, he could see what Badger did – the only person on her feet up there was Kate. And she was turned away, firing out the hatch.

There was no one between Badger and the cockpit.

* * *

Predator and Misha didn’t relinquish their mutual death embrace, right hands remaining locked, but did resume hurling each other around the cabin, the two land giants whirling around the gravity well of that knife, smashing into bulkheads.

But now Misha had an evil glint in his eye.

He nodded down at Handon’s limp form on the deck, and spoke in an evil growl. “After I finish you, I am going to pick up your commander – and I am going to toss him out that hatch there.”

Pred half-picked Misha up and hurled him into the opposite bulkhead. They froze again, two oceans of strength cancelling each other out, locked in deadly opposition.

“He went down screaming, you know – and begging for his life.”

Pred pulled Misha from the bulkhead and slung him into the other one with a cabin-rattling crash, their hands still locked. But he followed him in, pressing up against the knife and the Russian’s body, sticking his giant head in Misha’s face. When he spoke, it was from inches away – his voice first a gravelly, lethal whisper, then rising to a hair-blowing bellow.

“I seriously doubt that. But even if he did…
YOU DO NOT GET TO KEEP HIS FUCKING KNIFE!
” And bringing his left hand in, Pred managed to peel Misha’s fingers away from the pommel – and then smashed his hand brutally against the bulkhead behind him.

The knife came free and skittered across the deck.

But Misha was already bringing his knee up into the big man’s groin. And as Pred’s grip relaxed, Misha grabbed his ears with both hands and slammed his face into the steel bulkhead, right beside his own.

Pred reeled, staggering, three-quarters stunned.

Finally free, Misha walked straight to Handon, picked him up by the belt, and dragged him toward the whistling wind of the open hatch. In seconds, Handon’s torso was out in the slipstream.

Pred shook his head and tried to focus – then lurched over, grabbing Handon’s leg with his right hand and giving Misha a ferocious shove with the other. He then hauled Handon’s center of gravity back over the lip, going down on one knee as he did so.

Behind him, Misha unclipped the ruptured fire extinguisher from its bracket on the bulkhead. And he brought it down with both hands on the back of Pred’s head.

Predator collapsed, his body draping protectively over Handon’s.

Then Misha, sucking wind and growling, looked around for the dropped Vorax knife, spotting it on the deck fifteen feet away. As he walked to it, he passed Juice, who was only just recovering from being mostly suffocated – and who now lunged for him. Misha put his hand on Juice’s head, redirecting his attack into the bulkhead. Instead of letting him fall, he gripped his head with both hands – and smashed it into the wall. Juice collapsed to the ground, totally out again.

Then Misha calmly walked over, picked up the knife, and went back to the two crumpled bodies in the hatch, one atop the other, Predator and Handon.

“Two throats,” he said, lifting Pred’s head up and exposing his neck. “One place to slit them.”

* * *

Inevitably, Fick had followed up zinging his helmet at Badger – which caused him to lose another knife when he tried to block it – with a tackle that brought him down to the deck again, largely negating his advantage in speed and stamina. Now Fick knew he was going to have to finish this thing – he was cut in too many places, and unless he stopped and wrapped those wounds up, his advantage in strength was going to evaporate damned quickly.

With Badger pinned beneath him, he went for the traditional forehead to the nose. But the Russian saw it coming, and used his speed and flexibility to get his face out of the way, taking Fick’s strike on his ear instead. He also used the moment of distraction to twist his knife to the inside, and bring the blade across the top of Fick’s knife hand.

His K-Bar hit the deck beside his head.

With Fick distracted, Badger twisted and squirmed at high speed and rolled them both over, ending up on top again. And with Fick having no blade for Badger to keep at bay, he grasped his own knife with both hands, and put his full weight behind it…

Bringing it down straight toward Fick’s exposed throat.

* * *

Head and eyes both swimming, Baxter felt for something on the bulkhead to help him back up. But motion caught his eye and he looked forward and tried to focus. It was Badger. Making an end-zone run for the cockpit.

No one stood between him and it now.

Wait, scratch that
, Baxter thought. No one stood – but, that didn’t mean no one was there. To get to the aisle between the rows of seats, Badger had to pass through the casualty collection point. And now Zack, lying on the right side, recuperating from thoracic surgery, reached out and tripped him.

Baxter’s heart leapt.
Yeah! Good ole Zack!

The Russian stumbled, caught himself on the back of one of the seats, turned, and looked down at Zack. And he stomped his boot through his stitched-up surgical scar.

Behind him, on the left, the horrendously torn-up Jake had regained consciousness – and now slashed the back of Warchild’s calf, deep, just above the boot, with his Special Forces Yarborough knife. Lips pursed like he needed to scream but wasn’t going to, Badger turned and kicked Jake full in the head. The veteran team sergeant went limp again, collapsing beside the insensible al-Sif.