Authors: Russell Blake
Another backhand from Nahir knocked her head to the side.
He glanced at his watch and turned to Hamid in disgust. “The helicopter is waiting. I must go. Make her suffer. Film it so I can enjoy it later. Start with cigarettes, then electrodes, then move to acid. She will talk.”
Nahir stalked off, his composure slipping, and pushed open the jail door. When he was almost at the exit, Maya spoke, her voice low.
“I’ll see you in hell, scum.”
He stopped and laughed, genuinely amused. “Perhaps. But you’ll be waiting a long time.” He seemed to consider saying something more and then thought better of it. When Nahir had gone, Hamid took a final puff on his cigarette and ground it beneath his foot.
He moved next to her, his face close, reeking of body odor, nicotine, and rot. His breath was like an open grave, and she winced in spite of herself.
“Do you know what I like? A girl who hates me. Who feels violated when I touch her. With Nahir gone, I will draw this out for days. And frankly I don’t care if you ever answer. In fact, I’m not going to ask you any questions. I don’t want to know.”
He moved to the corner of the room and opened a toolbox. When he straightened, he was holding a blowtorch and a straight razor crusted with blood.
He smiled when he saw a flicker in her eyes. “Ah, I see you recognize your friend’s blood. What I did to her is nothing compared to what I have in store for you. A warm-up.” He paused, savoring the moment. “And I’m not even going to bother with the cigarettes. Why waste them? I’ll roast parts of you that you never knew existed, and then take you over and over again while you scream for the mercy of death. I think it’s safe to say this isn’t your lucky day.”
Maya coughed. “You won’t get anything out of me.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t care.” He laughed, an ugly humorless sound. “But you’re wrong. I’m going to get so much out of you it will surprise you. For starters, a movie to add to my considerable collection. Which I’ll make lots of money selling to collectors. And the moments we will share together – the memories. Some things are priceless.” He grinned, his wormlike lips like maggots framing his mouth, his teeth yellowed from cigarettes and ringed with decay, and set the knife and torch down. He shouldered through the jail door and returned with a video camera on a tripod, which he took his time setting up, humming to himself.
When he finished, he studied the screen and made a small adjustment and then exited the cell again. The work lamp he carried in had dried blood spattered on the shaft. He set it against the wall and switched it on, brightening the squalid cell.
Two pops sounded from outside, and then another. Hamid stooped to retrieve the torch from the floor. “The fireworks are starting. It’s a shame you’ll be missing such a beautiful display. Every birthday, it’s like New Year’s Eve over the island.”
A rattle from the entrance drew his attention. His eyes widened in disbelief when Natasha limped through the door, pistol in hand. He instinctively moved his hands in front of him as though he could deflect the bullets; she shot him in the chest, no hesitation or mercy. The shot was deafening in the confines of the chamber, but even so Maya could hear the scream of pain as he fell against the back wall, dropping the torch. Natasha entered the cell, and her eyes locked on the razor. She knelt wordlessly and picked it up and then turned to Maya and slashed the ropes binding her to the chair. Maya pulled free and stood.
Natasha nodded to her. “The guards…have guns. Dead. Take your pick.”
Maya probed her jaw and the back of her head with her hand.
“Thank you.”
Hamid whimpered from where he was curled in a fetal position, blood slowly pooling beneath him. Natasha held up the razor and then saw the torch. She scooped it up and then looked at Maya.
“Leave him to me.”
Maya glanced at the torch and at Natasha’s broken face covered in burns and crusted blood, and nodded.
“He said he was going to make me beg for death.”
Maya made for the exit. She was relieving one of the fallen guards of his pistol and rifle, slipping the extra magazines in her side pockets, when the first shriek sounded from the cell, an otherworldly scream that would linger in her memory like the look in Natasha’s eyes when they’d exchange their last glance.
Another scream drifted from the doorway, this one weaker, and Maya stood and inspected the Romanian AIMS assault rifle she’d chosen. Satisfied, she chambered a round in the SIG Sauer pistol and bolted down the trail, disappearing into the night.
Chapter 37
The AIMS bucked in Maya’s hands as she emptied the first magazine, cutting down three of the five guards outside the building where the gas was stored, the 7.62mm rounds pounding into them as they tried to return fire. Slugs whistled around her as she ejected the magazine, slapped another in place, and picked off another shooter, targeting his muzzle flash.
Maya rolled as an answering volley shredded the spot where she’d been and saw that the last guard was using the corner of the building for cover. That left a standoff, but she didn’t have time to wait for him to make a slip. She rose and took careful steps through the jungle, trying to remain silent even though she knew the man’s ears had to be ringing as badly as hers from the gunfire.
There. She had a clear shot. He jerked backward like a marionette as rounds thumped into his torso, and she was already moving by the time he tumbled backward into the dirt.
The door was locked, and she found no keys on the dead men. Aware that the firefight would draw others within moments, she shot the door apart and kicked it open.
The interior was pitch black. She felt along the wall and was rewarded when her fingers found a junction box. Maya flipped the switch, and the room was bathed in light.
Stacks of wooden crates lined the walls. She moved to the nearest and saw the Cyrillic letters for Russian RPGs –
Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomyot
: Transliterated into English, rocket-propelled grenades. Handheld antitank grenade launchers. Other, longer crates contained surface-to-air missiles, next to which were landmines, assault rifles, heavy machine guns…enough weapons to fight a small war.
At the far end of the chamber, two wooden crates with the distinctive biohazard symbol embossed on their sides rested along the back wall with their tops pried off. Next to them lay formed polystyrene inserts, each with cavities for two cylinders – six in all. One of the canisters was now a molten blob aboard the fishing boat, and she was willing to bet the arms merchant had taken the rest.
And he’d said something about a helicopter.
Nahir hadn’t returned down the trail that led to the villa, or she would have spotted him. So he must have taken another. Which meant that he’d doubtlessly heard the firefight and was even now loading his precious cargo, readying for takeoff somewhere nearby.
She extinguished the light and moved to the doorway. If there was another path, it had to be in the opposite direction from the one that led to the complex. Moments later she’d spotted the other trail and was running flat out, her legs burning from the exertion, determined that Nahir not get away.
The night closed in around her as she came over a rise, the canopy so thick overhead that the moon’s glow was blocked. She heard the distinctive thumping of a helicopter ahead. Maya slowed as she reached the edge of a clearing, where a golf cart was parked a few meters away from a burgundy Bell 407 helicopter, its turbine idling.
Nahir stood by the cockpit door and was turning toward her when the darkness around him exploded with muzzle flashes, the stiff rattle of assault rifles announcing that her arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. Rounds zipped by her as she took cover behind a tree and returned fire. She’d seen at least three guards, but they were out in the open, obviously not expecting her to make it there that quickly. Slugs tore into the tree trunk. Maya held her fire and then dropped to one knee and let loose a volley from a prone position at the gunmen scurrying away from the helicopter.
Maya took a deep breath as the revs of the aircraft’s engine increased, and emptied her rifle in one sustained burst at the shooters. Two of the men went down, and she was seating another magazine when the helicopter’s side door swung shut and it began to lift into the air. She continued firing at the surviving guard until he stopped shooting back. Dropping her rifle aside, she groped for the tube strapped across her chest.
The Bell was airborne, fifteen meters above the ground and picking up speed when it exploded in a supernova of orange flame. Multiple detonations rocked the chopper as it dropped like a stone, the high-pressure nerve gas canisters exploding as the fuel tank immolated the cabin. Maya was already scooping up her rifle and turning away when the burning aircraft slammed into the field.
She threw one final glance over her shoulder at the flaming wreckage belching smoke into the sky and took off at a trot. It was obvious that no one would be walking away from the conflagration, and she saw nothing to be gained waiting around for the weapons dealer’s entourage to make it over the hill – because of the topography, the explosion wouldn’t have been visible at the villa, but even with the hubbub from the party, someone was bound to have heard.
Besides, she still had several errands to attend to; even if Nahir was now just a molten smudge in the dirt, his private army was still a threat.
Maya ran easily, the night air crisp as she neared the fork in the road next to the arms storage building. She paused when she reached it but heard nothing – no revving engines or shouts of alarm.
She took the branch that led to the bunker where she’d left Natasha. When she arrived, she leaned into the doorway and called out.
“Natasha?”
A scrape from inside followed a rustle, and Natasha appeared, pistol in hand, Hamid’s boots on her feet, drying blood drops staining her forearms. Maya told her about the gunfight and the helicopter, studying Natasha’s ravaged face and ashen complexion as she spoke.
“The guards are going to go berserk when they discover Nahir’s dead,” Natasha warned, her voice stronger than earlier. “We need to get off the island.”
“I need to send the satellite signal.”
“Too risky.”
“It has to be done. If it’s even possible without the remote.”
“You can do it manually,” Natasha said and explained how.
“I’ll meet you at the water. You think you can make it?”
“Not much choice, is there?”
Maya hesitated. “And Hamid?”
Natasha shrugged. “Gone to his reward. No doubt stoking the fire for Nahir’s eternity.”
Maya nodded. “Hopefully this won’t take more than twenty minutes.”
“Take your time.”
Maya nodded and checked her rifle’s magazine and then turned and began jogging down the trail that led back to the villa, leaving Natasha to make her own way down the winding track to the shore.
Chapter 38
Two golf carts hurtled toward Maya as she approached the villa grounds. She’d seen their headlights and taken cover in the brush, but could hear chattering radios and excited voices as they rolled past her hiding place, no doubt rushing to investigate the helicopter crash.
Blue and green neon starbursts exploded overhead as the fireworks began. Maya continued through the jungle, skirting the back gate, darting from shadow to shadow with the fluid lope of a panther. She covered the ground to the junction box in a few anxious minutes. After pausing to confirm that nobody was patrolling the area, she leaned the AIMS rifle against the structure’s side and scrambled to the top. The transmitter was where she’d left it, and she flipped it over, recalling Natasha’s explanation of how to activate it.
There.
She felt for the power button and depressed it.
A green LED blinked, indicating that the message was transmitting, bouncing off an orbiting sphere far above her in the heavens. Maya set the unit back in place and dropped to the ground, the clock now started on the Indonesian navy steaming their way – assuming all went well, which so far hadn’t been the case.
Flashlight beams played across the plants near the junction box. She ducked as one skimmed over the thicket to her left. Hushed voices from the path by the wall neared as the lights moved to the structure and lingered on it. She peered over her shoulder and could just make out the tip of her rifle barrel leaning against the side – hopefully sufficiently out of sight.
A twig snapped as a heavy body shouldered through the bushes ahead of her. Maya inched toward the rifle, but froze when the lights resumed playing over the tall grass. A pair of muddy boots materialized a meter to her left, moving cautiously in the direction of the junction structure. She slid her hand to the SIG Sauer P226 pistol nestled in her waistband and drew it.
Static crackled from the nearby guard’s radio, and an alarmed voice shouted from the tinny speaker. Maya used the distraction to cock the pistol’s hammer. Another guard clumped by her, and a strained murmured discussion ensued only a hair’s breadth from her position – the news of the helicopter crash must have just reached them.
The men hissed back and forth in a subdued exchange, and after a pause their boots tromped back to the trail at a rapid clip, caution abandoned. Maya silently thanked the universe for the small reprieve and then stiffened when one of the guards swung his light back to the junction and hissed a warning to his companion.
The SIG Sauer barked as she fired as rapidly as she could, rising to a kneeling position and steadying her aim with a two-handed grip at the men’s silhouettes barely visible against the darker backdrop of vegetation. The 9mm Parabellum rounds dropped them both, and they collapsed into the grass without getting off a shot.
One of the men’s radios burped static, followed by a terse interrogative. Maya lunged for her rifle and was on her feet before the transmission fell silent. She knew the area would be surrounded within moments – her only edge lay in her ability to move faster than her pursuers, and she wasted no time springing into action.