Mercenary

Mercenary

Episode Two

Theta Beginnings
Miniseries

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By Lizzy Ford

www.LizzyFord.com

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www.LizzyFord.com

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All rights reserved.

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from
the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote
short excerpts in a review.

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This novel is a work of fiction. Any
references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or
to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of
reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously and their resemblance, if any, to real-life
counterparts is entirely coincidental.

I watched the world burn with glee. Fresh
off a paid mission overseas, I had spent several years building up
a reputation and career as a personal bodyguard for drug dealers,
heads of criminal organizations, mob bosses and anyone else who
paid upfront, asked no questions and didn’t care how many bodies
piled up. They were the only kinds of jobs I could find after my
two year murder trial ended five years ago. I was acquitted –
compliments of the politician who hired me to make the hit landing
me on trial – but I was also blacklisted from any sort of
legitimate employment anywhere, thanks to a Supreme Magistrate
determined to punish my former employer and anyone who worked for
him.

So when I saw the
words,
Supreme Magistrate feared
dead,
scroll across the screen for the
fourth time, I laughed. I continued to grin as the news stations in
Washington DC, where I lived, scrambled for coverage of what was
happening around the world. Whenever they managed to grab a live
feed from another city, it ended up flat lining once the other
station was struck by the gods’ fury.

“The gods show their true colors at last,” I
said, smiling. Earlier in the evening, the gods had begun to attack
humanity, everywhere but within the DC area and Maryland, an area
reportedly protected by Zeus. The newscasters weren’t able to
identify how far this safe zone extended, but they claimed Zeus’
priests had contacted them directly and assured them that DC would
be spared whatever wrath the gods were displaying across the rest
of the planet.

My eyes glued to the television screen, I
loaded magazines into the weapons I spent the past hour cleaning
and piled my favorite knives on one side of the coffee table for a
quick inspection before I left my apartment.

The world had descended into
absolute madness. I couldn’t conform to a society where my natural
violent tendencies were condemned but this … this was chaos. This
was
me.
An
environment where only the merciless survived? I was born for this!
The fatigue I experienced from nine months overseas disappeared
when I began to consider all the possibilities.

My cell rang, and I grabbed it.

“Yeah,” I said gruffly into the phone.

“Good evening, Niko.” The polished voice was
quiet.

Wariness crept into my excitement. “What do
you want?”

“Are you watching the news?”

“Who isn’t?”

“Then you should know what I want.”

I had been hoping this particular man had
been killed by the gods. I squeezed the hilt of a knife hard enough
for my knuckles to turn white. Setting it down, I leaned back and
allowed the sofa cushions to support my weight. “Humor me,” I
said.

Cleon, the wealthy politician I allied with
seven years ago, called when he needed my particular skills. We had
a deal of sorts, one I wasn’t able to buck, when he alone knew what
to hold over my head to make me comply with his demands. The good:
he called infrequently, and it had been eighteen months since we
last spoke. The bad: the jobs he hired me for were rougher than any
of my other gigs. All the scars I had earned since we met were from
jobs I did for him.

“I thought you would be pleased to know the
Supreme Magistrate won’t be crushing either of us beneath his heel
anymore,” Cleon said.

“You never call to discuss the news.”

“Very well, Niko. I try to make our
exchanges pleasant as my way of showing you I appreciate what you
do.”

I rolled my eyes. It had taken me some time
to figure Cleon out. I was constantly surrounded by men whose
reputations for violence were a source of pride. I had developed a
sixth sense when it came to people and surviving strangers. Like
me, Cleon was a different animal. Brilliant, driven, and obsessive,
he was also capable of generosity and kindness. He fit the
description of a psychopath – except he valued the relationships he
shared with a select few too much to be incapable of empathy.

He was complicated, and for some reason, he
genuinely liked me, which was how I got away with what I often did
when dealing with him.

“I don’t need your shit,” I replied. “Tell
me what you want. I’ve got some looting to do.”

“For such a talented man, you have such low
ambitions.”

“Bye, Cleon.” I hung up but didn’t put the
phone on the coffee table.

In his circles, he was supposed to be
diplomatic, indirect and politically correct, to the point no one
was supposed to know what his true positions on anything were. I
usually had to remind him once or twice not to play those games
with me. I already knew what he was. Likewise, he understood the
depths of me.

The phone rang again.

“Yeah,” I said, answering it.

“This again.” A flicker of annoyance was in
Cleon’s tone.

“We’re past the foreplay stage, Cleon.”

He released a slow sigh. “Half my personal
security detail was in Florida in training this weekend. An
opportunity presented itself I must take advantage of, and what
remains of my personal detail is not likely to last until dawn. The
city is a warzone. I’m not even certain who is attacking my
convoy.”

It was then I heard the sound of a gun
report, followed by several answering shots and the accompanying
shouting of men.

“If you are in the city and available, I
would appreciate your support,” Cleon said, ignoring the
sounds.

I started to laugh. “You’re in the middle of
it, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I am,” the unflappable politician
confirmed. “I may be in the need of an expedient extraction. Can
you bring your team?”

“They’re stuck overseas. But I’m here.”

“It might take more than you this time.”

“Text me your location. I’ll see you in
thirty.” I hung up and tucked my phone in my pocket before
strapping on my most lightweight protective vest. It was followed
by various sheaths, ammo storage pouches, and weapons carriers. I
had mastered the combination of mobility and firepower after
several missions overseas in hostile, third world countries. I paid
an exorbitant amount of money for the bulletproof vest that weighed
a mere two pounds and was an eighth of an inch thick. Everything
else was custom made for my body, fitted in a way to ensure I could
reload a handgun in seconds and also kick someone in the head as
needed.

When I was ready, I checked the location
Cleon had provided and then began calculating how to reach him
fast. I wouldn’t drive a car in this insanity if my life depended
on it, but a motorcycle would be agile enough to maneuver through
the chaos and carry me across the western part of the city towards
his location, somewhere around Silver Spring, just inside the
Beltway, at the border of Maryland and DC.

Leaving my apartment, I trotted down the
stairs to the garage under the building and unchained my ride from
the post I parked it next to. I walked it up the ramp leading to
the street and paused. In the distance, first responder sirens
screamed while the monotone blare of the foul weather warning
system echoed off the cement buildings in my neighborhood.
Otherwise, it was eerily still. No one on my street was out, though
the lights in every building were on.

I slung my leg over the seat of my ride and
didn’t bother with a helmet. The police had better things to do
than enforce the helmet law tonight.

My bike roared to life, and I took off. The
side streets were quiet, vacant, and I began to wonder where
Cleon’s war zone was. It wasn’t until I cut through downtown DC
that I began to see the looters struggling to carry stolen goods
down the streets. The police cordoned off the memorials and
governmental buildings but hadn’t yet barricaded the shopping and
business districts – or the banks, which was where I would have
been headed if Cleon hadn’t called.

I skirted police barricades and walked my
bike through crowds of people on the verge of killing each other to
get to the money in banks and ATMs. DC was a political city where
someone was always protesting something. I passed two large
rallies, one whose speakers were condemning the gods and another
whose leaders urged the world to have faith during the end of
days.

On several blocks, the police and people
were clashing, and the acrid scent of tear gas was strong enough
for my eyes to water a hundred yards away. I tore down side streets
when the main routes became too violent or crowded, stair stepping
my way north. The closer I got to Silver Spring, the more I began
to see the war zone Cleon had described. It began with a woman
sobbing over the lifeless body of a man in the middle of the
street.

I followed the trail of bodies riddled with
bullet wounds until I heard the active sounds of gunfire ahead.

Rather than plough into it, I hid my bike
among the bushes of a small park and darted into the nearest
apartment building, taking the stairs two at a time as I went to
the roof. When I reached the top, I trotted to the nearest corner
to scout what obstacles were in my path.

It looked like a tsunami was poised at the
northwestern side of the city. Instead of water, the wave about to
hit the city was made up of people and vehicles. They jammed the
roads, neighborhoods, and every inch of space between them in order
to seek refuge inside of Zeus’ protected city. The military had set
up barricades and armored vehicles, the police riot gear, and they
were both struggling either to slow or stop the surge of refugees
pouring into a city already on the brink of collapse.

In addition, flashes of light from the
muzzles of weapons and the report of rifles, as well as the
occasional boom from a bigger gun - possibly from one of the
armored vehicles - originated from a point just north of where
Cleon claimed to be. Floodlights blazed along the edges of DC. The
Beltway, and every other road leading into the city, was a parking
lot.

To the north, in Maryland, the skies were
clear as far as I could see, but to the west, over Virginia, from
the direction the people came, fire rained down from the heavens to
burn everything it touched to the ground. Everything within the
Beltway was safe. I judged the firestorms in Virginia to be maybe
thirty miles away, outside the Metro DC area.

Adrenaline surged through me, and I stood,
mesmerized and grinning, as I watched the world outside of the DC
area end. How Cleon could find any opportunity in this disaster, I
had no idea. But the man was smart enough to capitalize on any
chance he found to better his position, especially now that his
primary complication – the Supreme Magistrate – was dead. Something
here had caught his attention for him to travel from the relative
safety of his home in northern Maryland to the city.

My phone rang, and I answered it. I was
about to snap at him and tell him I was almost there when a scared,
young voice spoke first.

“Mommy won’t wake up.”

The words, or perhaps the voice, yanked me
out of my near-giddy state. Turning away from the chaos, I fought
the sudden tension of my body. My chest tightened, and my free hand
clenched in a fist. My primal side had already figured out what
took me a full ten seconds to register.