Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (37 page)

“You three go after the others who got away, I’ll take on the
straggler,” Deckard ordered. The one he had forced back looked like
a bigger guy. It was just a hunch, but one he wanted to follow. They
were all in at this point anyway.

“Got it,” Nate said, and took the three men down the
side passage in pursuit, each of them hopping over the dead body
Deckard had made.

Deckard edged around the corner and into the tunnel on the
other side of the wider corridor. His rifle was shaking in his hands,
reciprocating the vibrations that ran up the length of his body. The
device had obviously been put into the geophysical version of a
Chernobyl meltdown. Oculus was going for a last-ditch effort, knowing
that the mercenaries were closing in. In the distance, a shadow
shuffled through the dark.

Firing a snapshot off, a burst instantly responded back to
Deckard, cutting through the air inches for his side. He was staring
down his sights, looking for a second sight picture, when the tunnel
suddenly collapsed behind him. Deckard scrambled forward, chancing
the gunfire as snow and ice came splashing down behind him. Nearly
losing his footing, the floor gave out and Deckard found himself
momentarily in free fall before landing hard on his back. The ice was
cracked apart beneath him.

The ceiling opened up above him, letting in the last light of
dusk as he slid down into the abyss. Sliding into the darkness,
Deckard skidded around the ice, momentarily going upside down before
he kicked his boots a few times and managed to right himself. In
front of him, he caught the vague outline of another human being on
the same trajectory with him.

Determined to at least go out with a fight, Deckard sat up
and blasted off rounds at his target as fast as he could pull the
trigger. Realizing someone was above him, the Oculus member sprayed
fire behind him, the shots disappearing into the collapsing ice
walls. The floor continued to cant downwards, terminating in what
looked like a bottomless drop. Sensing his impending doom, the Oculus
super soldier managed to get up on one knee as he slid down. At the
last moment, he vaulted into the air like a gymnast and flew right
over the pit. He grabbed the ice with his bare hands and scrambled up
to safety.

Deckard knew his hunch had been right, that he was tracking one
of the Chinese test-tube experiments, but he didn’t have time to
dwell on that. All he had time for was to free his ice axe and
execute an extremely weak attempt at jumping up and over the chasm.
The American hurtled through the air like a retarded puppy and
slammed the ice axe in just as he hit the wall in front of him. Every
joint and muscle in Deckard’s body screamed in pain.

Somewhere below, his Kalashnikov fell into the pit.

Forcing himself to ignore his body’s protests, he grabbed for
the ice tool on his belt and swung it into the ice. Using only his
upper-body strength, he muscled his way up the ice wall, even as
everything collapsed down around him. A fissure erupted right up the
middle of the ice he was climbing, causing him to lose his grip on
both tools at the same time. For a second, he dangled in the air,
hanging by the lanyard he had managed to get around his wrist on the
handle of the ice tool. Reaching out, he grabbed both and pushed
himself, swinging arm over arm.

Grunting in pain and exhaustion, he reaching the lip of the wall.
Just as he got the ice tool up over the edge and began to pull
himself up, a hand came over the edge straight at him and grabbed his
parka, dragging him up.

Chapter 35

Greenland

The charges detonated in sequence, multiple puffs of smoke going
off and forming an explosive ring around the garage entrance. A plume
of gray smoke floated over the vehicles, the hatch to the chamber
blown open. Turning over the engine, Oculus commandos in the hulking
treaded tractor guided the light swing out of the facility. Hauling
six sleds packed with military equipment, the tractor’s snow treads
dug in. Just as the caterpillar-looking monstrosity was pulling out,
Shun and two more Oculus members materialized from the connecting
tunnel and jumped up onto the last sled.

Nate, Aslan, and two other mercenaries spilled out into the
garage, their rifle barrels sweeping across its breadth in search of
targets. They were just in time to see the ass end of the light swing
pull out of the garage and disappear onto the tundra.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Nate said, yelling
above the sound of the ice base shaking itself apart. One of the
buttresses holding up a wall broke, causing snow to flow into the
garage in a miniature avalanche.

Aslan slung his sniper rifle and ran to the side of the garage
where some gear was stacked. Reaching down, he yanked a green tarp
off a pallet.

The smile on his face seemed oddly out of place given the fact
that the roof was about to collapse at any moment, but the other
mercenaries could not help but smile back.

* * *

Deckard landed on his back and immediately swung his ice
axe toward where he thought the enemy soldier was. The Chinese
commando easily swatted the axe away and clamped down on Deckard’s
wrist, squeezing it in his hand with an iron grip.

“It is about time that we met face to face, Deckard.”

Deckard looked up at him, his opponent’s brown eyes piercing
him with their gaze.

“I’m called Jiahao, and I have waited a long time for this.”

“I’m called go fuck yourself,” Deckard replied, just as the
platform of ice suddenly crumbled again. Deckard’s vision was
obscured by the crashing ice, but he knew he was falling. Sliding
down the fissure that had opened up under him, he grasped for the ice
axe hanging from his wrist while swinging the ice tool wildly, hoping
to stick it in something, anything, to break his fall. Once he had
both tools in his hands, he frantically tried to shove them into the
ice and slow himself down. One stuck, but then broke free from the
ice.

The best he could do at that point was keep both feet together
when he slammed into the bottom. He came down hard, landing in a
shallow pool of water, and had the wind knocked out of him. With a
groan, he rolled over onto his side, the freezing water seeping
through his jacket and startling him back to his senses.

It was never enough to kill him, just enough to hurt really,
really badly.

The fissure had grown above him, the last light of the day
streaming inside what appeared to be a naturally made ice tunnel.
Whether it was entirely natural or formed by warm water exiting the
ice base from their shower and chow hall facilities was impossible to
guess at the moment. The ground still shook beneath his feet, the
scary part being that it wasn’t really ground, but more ice that
could come apart at any second.

Deckard staggered to his feet and tried to get some
feeling into his hands, messing around with several failed attempts
before he finally tethered his axe and ice tool to his belt. With his
Kalashnikov long gone, he drew the Glock 19 from its holster. Jiahao
was somewhere down here, and having seen his abilities firsthand, he
didn’t believe for a moment that the Oculus leader had died in the
fall.

Water gushed around his boots as he looked up at the pockmarked
ice at the top of the tunnel, then back down in search of Jiahao. A
chunk of ice broke free and splashed into the water next to Deckard,
the entire cavern groaning as the elasticity of the ice was strained
by invisible electromagnetic energy from the device, most likely
buried in the ruins of the ice base at this point.

“Deckard,” a voice echoed from the darkness of the tunnel,
“how does it feel to know that your country is in decline? To have
your power challenged?”

Holding his pistol in both hands, Deckard cautiously moved
forward.

“China suffered decades of humiliation at America’s hands,
but now it is our time. It is our right to take what belongs to us!”

The tunnel shook again, Deckard’s boots sliding on the slick
ice. Half soaked, he was beginning to shiver already.

“We have suffered your spiritual pollution long enough,”
Jiahao wailed like a child.

Deckard squinted to see through the dark, searching for his
quarry. The Chinese soldier sounded like a full-blown fanatic, a
frustrated young man pumped full of communist propaganda. Frustrated
or not, the kid was clearly one of the vat-grown super soldiers Will
had described. Reaching into his pocket, Deckard pulled the elastic
band of a headlamp over his head, but did not dare to turn it on yet.
Activating a “shoot-me” light in the confines of a dark cave
would be the quickest way for him to receive a tight burst from
Jiahao’s Tavor rifle.

“You met the mage, Deckard. I know he told you these
things.”

The voice came as a hiss, over Deckard’s shoulder, behind him,
in front of him, it was impossible to tell where he was. Everywhere
and nowhere all at the same time.

The American flinched as the roof of the tunnel collapsed behind
him, plunging him into the darkness. The rumbling continued as ice
crumbled and fell around him, the vibrations under his feet rattling
the tunnel to pieces. Hearing another section of the tunnel collapse,
Deckard turned and ran.

Now he reached up and turned on his head lamp. The pillar of
light cut through the darkness, reflecting off the ice and the stream
of water as he splashed through it, slipping every few steps. The
tunnel continued to collapse behind him, falling in one massive chunk
after the other.

In front of him he could see glimpses of Jiahao running for his
life as well. The Chinese commander was sprinting at full tilt,
striding like a marathon runner. Deckard was lagging behind,
battered, beaten, and unable to get any traction on the ice as he
ran. The thuds got louder and louder in his ears as the tunnel
imploded, nipping right at his heels. Deckard skidded to a stop as a
car-sized piece of ice dropped down right in front of him.

For a second, claustrophobia set in, Deckard’s heart racing as
he feared being entombed alive. Images of Jacob, buried underneath an
avalanche, fluttered in front of his eyes for a split second. Feeling
his way around the block of ice, Deckard pushed the fatalistic
thoughts from his mind and forced his legs to carry him forward.

Dodging several more ice blocks, Deckard again caught sight of
Jiahao just as the Chinese commando lost his footing and went
face-first into the stream. The Oculus commander quickly recovered
and got back to his feet. Up ahead he could now see a way out, the
tunnel terminating in another 100 meters. Moonlight formed a glow
around the exit, summoning them.

Stumbling forward, Deckard’s felt his quadriceps seizing up,
the cramping slowing him down. He gritted his teeth and fell forward
more than running forward. The tunnel was coming down in sections
behind him, each one sounding with a boom.

Now Jiahao was showing his own weakness as he fell on his face
and split his head open on the ice. Deckard was actually catching up
with him in the final 25-meter dash of their lives. Jiahao looked
back at him with a snarl, bright red blood running down his face.

Deckard slammed into him as the final section of the tunnel
collapsed. A sneeze of snow and ice pushed them both the rest of the
way out, flinging them through the air and back out onto the tundra.

* * *

Nate steered his snowmobile toward the light swing,
kicking up a spray of snow in their wake. One of the Kazakhs held on
to the seat behind him, pointing toward the tractor and sleds up
ahead. Aslan and another Kazakh came up on their flank, riding their
own snowmobile. The former Marine had to admit, this had been the
most batshit crazy deployment he had ever been on, and that was
saying a lot.

The twin snowmobiles raced up alongside the rear end of the light
swing. The industrial-grade treaded tractor effortlessly hauled the
six connected sleds behind it like the Arctic locomotive it was. Nate
hit the throttle and took them right alongside the trail sled, just
as a shot rang in his left ear. The Kazakh trooper took down a
white-clad Oculus member who had spotted them. The corpse slid off
the side of the sled, forcing Nate to react abruptly, nearly flinging
the Kazakh off his seat as he swerved around the body.

The Samruk trooper didn't waste any time once Nate got
them realigned, jumping up onto the platform. Standing up on the
seat, Nate guided himself as closely as possible to the sled and then
vaulted off. The Kazakh caught his wrist and pulled him up. Aslan and
the other Kazakh were repeating the maneuver, but the staccato bursts
of gunfire coming from up ahead made it clear that they had been
compromised.

The sled was packed full of pallets, giving something for the
Samruk mercenaries to take cover behind. Taking a knee behind a
pallet strapped down to the bed of the sled, they returned fire on
several muzzle flashes coming from the three Oculus members who had
escaped them earlier. Nate gained target acquisition and gently
stroked the trigger as he transitioned from target to target until
the guns fell silent. By the time he finished, their two Samruk
comrades had joined them behind the pallet.

Then the second wave hit them hard. The pallet began
disintegrating under the onslaught of incoming fire, the four
mercenaries crowding behind what little cover they had. The two
Kazakhs reached for fragmentation grenades, primed them, and made
ready to overhand toss both of them farther up onto one of the
forward sleds.

When they stood up to throw, one chucked his toward the target.
The other immediately collapsed with a gunshot wound to the head.
Nate flung himself forward toward the frag grenade as it bounced
across the sled. With no desire to be a martyr, he quickly picked it
up and threw it before the fuse burned down. The grenade went off in
mid-air, just a split second after the first. Severed arms flew up in
the air. The grenades had successfully killed at least a couple of
Oculus shooters.