Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (25 page)

Kheda turned
halfway around, locked onto Avery, and swung his fist again. Avery dodged it,
pivoted, and landed a kick below Kheda’s sternum. The Chechen absorbed the blow
and clamped his big hands around Avery’s ankle. He tugged it sharply up,
toppling him. Avery landed on his back, smacking his tailbone against the hard
steel of the deck.

Avery lifted his
head. Behind Kheda, he saw the Russian getting back onto his feet. Aleksa lay
still on the deck.

The Russian drew
his pistol, but Kheda waved a restraining hand, indicating he wanted to deal
with Avery himself and that he still had the situation under control. The
Russian reluctantly took a few steps back, gave Kheda space.

Avery backed
away slowly across the deck in an effort to increase the gap between him and
the advancing Chechen. Distress signals shot through his nervous system from
every part of his body to his brain. He wasn’t able to ignore the pain in his
abdomen and ribs and head, but he pushed through it and sucked in a painful
lungful of air. Avery exploded onto his feet, bolted across the deck, and
slammed his overturned shoulder into the Chechen.

Knocked back a
couple steps, Kheda responded by punching down into the back of Avery’s skull. Then
he wrapped his hands tightly around Avery’s neck, squeezing his larynx and
trachea, Avery grew quickly dizzy and ready to pass out.

Then Kheda
started moving, stepping out on his left foot and sliding the right over,
dragging Avery’s deadweight with him. Two more steps in the same direction,
feeling the cold breeze whipping against them, and Avery realized the son of a
bitch intended to throw him out the back of the plane. Through a sideways
glance, he saw the patch of endless blue sky filling the space of the lowered cargo
ramp, fifteen feet way.

Avery thrashed
and kicked and threw his weight in the opposite direction and planted his feet firmly
against the deck and pushed against the direction in which Kheda dragged him,
doing everything within his limited power to prevent the Chechen from advancing
another inch with him.

But Kheda was
much stronger and had a solid forty pounds and five inches on Avery, and Avery
saw black spots popping up across his vision and his lungs received no air, and
it was just a matter of time before his legs slackened and gave out or he
blacked out.

Kheda brought
Avery in closer, wrangling to get better control over him. He wrapped his long arms
around Avery, beneath his armpits, interlocking his fingers behind his neck,
his hot, smelly breath against Avery’s face.

The Russian stayed
close to them but not intervening, the pistol still in his hand, lowered at his
side. He was oblivious to Aleksa stepping up behind him until he saw a blur of
lightning fast movement in front of his face and felt the steel chain between
her cuffs digging into his throat as she pulled it back and up. His eyes
bulged, and he grabbed at the chain, trying to get his fingers between it and
his throat, while trying to shake off his attacker. He slammed his weight back
against the fuselage, sandwiching Aleksa, but she refused to let go, and
struggled with him.

 Twelve feet
away, Kheda had his back to them, but Avery saw it all. He raised a knee into
Kheda’s crotch, mashing his balls together. That gave the Chechen a surprise, knocked
the air out of him, and Avery felt the grip around his throat slacken for just
a second.

It was enough.

Inhaling deep, Avery
snapped his head back, opened his mouth wide, and chomped his teeth down around
Kheda’s nose. Kheda responded instantly by trying to pull away, but Avery bit
down harder, sinking his teeth in and locking his jaw tight. He thrashed his
head from side to side, his teeth crunching and tearing through cartilage and
tearing blood vessels and sinus cavities. Blood and mucus filled his mouth.

 Tears pooled in
Kheda’s eyes. His mouth was agape, and Avery heard him screaming, howling like
a wild animal, over the barrage of the engines. Kheda released Avery’s neck and
took Avery’s head in his hands, squeezing his skull and pushing his head back
and trying to pry his jaws apart. His big hands covered Avery’s face, and Avery
ignored the thumb gouging into his eyeball and the tip of a pinky finger far up
his nostril. He bit down hard as he possibly could, grinding his teeth
together, and forcefully snapped his head back.

Kheda immediately
released Avery and raised his hands to the gaping hole in the center of his
face. Dark blood spurted from the hole.

Avery came
around and kicked Kheda’s knee out from behind, toppling him over onto his
other knee, and then Avery stepped back and kicked him in the chest. Then he
spit out the nose and a mouthful of blood and snot. The nose flew past Kheda
and was sucked out the back of the jet.

Kheda screamed
and launched himself at Avery, wrapping his arms around Avery and taking them
both to the deck. They tumbled and rolled over a couple times as Kheda tried to
throw Avery’s weight over to the ramp, but Avery wrapped his legs around Kheda,
locking them together, and they both slid halfway down the declined slope of
the ramp.

Avery ended up
on top, and he head butted the bloody gap in Kheda’s face.

With Kheda
looking sufficiently dazed and no longer putting up a fight, Avery started to
get back up. Along the way, he positioned his knee over Kheda’s abdomen and
dropped his weight on it. Kheda’s shoulders and head heaved off the ramp and
bounced back down. Saliva, mucus, and blood spattered Avery’s face.

Avery stood up.
Keeping his eyes on Kheda, not wanting to look past the airframe into the vast
open space, he began to back away.

But Kheda was determined
and wasn’t going to stay still. He moved slower now, less coordinated, somehow managing
to look even worse than Avery. His face and shirt were drenched in blood, and
his eyes looked glossy and dilated.

Avery risked
getting closer again and delivered a kick to Kheda’s face. The Chechen’s head
rolled back, but his reflexes were still sharp. He grabbed hold of Avery’s foot
with both hands and twisted the ankle hard to the left.

Acting fast, to
avoid having his ankle cracked, Avery dropped, driving the sole of his opposite
foot into Kheda’s chest. Still clinging to Avery, determined to never let go,
Kheda took Avery with him as he slipped further down the ramp.

The interior of
the cargo hold behind him, Avery saw nothing but open sky, white clouds, and
the shimmering surface of the Caspian Sea far below. He felt the vice-like grip
clamped around his foot. The endless wind blasted his face, forcing him to tilt
his head away to breathe.

Nearly half off
the right side of the ramp, with one leg dangling in space, Kheda continued
pulling on Avery’s right foot, determined to drag him off the plane. As he slid
down the ramp on his back, Avery kicked out and planted his opposite foot
against the long, vertical support strut that extended from the ramp into the
airframe above, stopping his fall. If he took that foot away, Kheda’s two
hundred plus pounds would easily take them both over the edge.

But Kheda didn’t
seem to mind too much. In fact, this realization only fuelled him further. He
stared into Avery’s eyes as he continued heaving on Avery’s leg, exerting the
same brute strength he used to row 150lb dumbbells.

Avery felt his
leg budging against the pylon, nearly giving out, bending further at the knee,
and his ass slid another couple inches down the ramp. He couldn’t hold this
position much longer and, with his hands locked behind his back, he had no
means of fighting off Kheda or grabbing onto anything.

But then the
ramp jerked abruptly into an upward motion. As it lifted back up, the force
pulling Avery toward the end of the ramp gave way, and the ramp quickly became
level. Avery removed his foot from the support pylon and smashed the sole of
his right boot into Kheda’s face.

 Reeling from
the blow, the Chechen lost his grip on Avery’s left foot. To no avail, he
frantically tried to grab onto something, anything, and his hands slid over the
smooth metal surface as he dropped off the ramp, into the sky, and out of
sight.

The ramp
continued rising, inclined steeply now, and Avery fell clumsily over onto the
cargo hold’s deck. The compartment became darker and calmer as the jet’s tail
end sealed shut, blotting out the sun and cutting off the blasting torrent of air.

Aleksa stood
near the control module.

The Russian lay
several feet away. His head was twisted around, with a deep, bloody red gouge
implanted around his throat in a chain-link pattern. Aleksa had his gun. She
bent over near Avery appraising his injuries, but he indicated that he was okay,
even though he didn’t feel it. He was unable to suppress the urge to vomit, and
he threw up the contents of his stomach onto the deck. Even after his stomach
had nothing left, his body continuing retching hard for several seconds.

Aleksa began
shaking. Avery knew that the effects of the adrenaline were wearing off now,
and she was likely becoming conscious of her own injuries and the realization
that she’d just taken a human being’s life.  

And they still
weren’t out of this yet.

She helped Avery
get his hands under his legs and in front of his body, and he took the gun from
her. She was only too grateful to be relieved of it. It was a GSh-18, a 9mm commonly
used by Russian cops. Avery checked the magazine. It had a full clip, seventeen
rounds, and he found another magazine on the dead Russian. No handcuff keys,
though.

Avery recalled
Cramer telling Kheda to dump the bodies in the Caspian. He supposed that meant
they were about three hours out from Tajikistan, if they were flying non-stop.
That would place them somewhere over Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan soon.

He wondered how
much time needed to pass before the other Russians in the passenger compartment
wondered why Kheda hadn’t returned yet and came back here to check up on him. Probably
not much longer, and Avery felt in no shape to take on another handful of
mafiya thugs.  

Aleksa helped
Avery onto his feet and followed him down the length of the cargo hold to the
bulkhead separating the forward cabin. He held the pistol two handed in front
of him and stood slightly to the side of the closed hatch.

Opposite him, Aleksa
positioned herself likewise, and Avery motioned for her to open the door. Ready
to immediately step out of the way, she gave the latch a pull, but it didn’t
budge, locked from the other side and leaving them no choice but to sit and
wait it out until someone up front got worried about his friends and decided to
poke his head back here. They wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming from the
other side, so Avery remained positioned exactly where he was, GSh-18 held
ready. He directed Aleksa to lie down on the deck, so that she would
immediately catch the attention of anyone stepping through the hatchway.

It took almost
thirty minutes for someone to become curious enough to take a peak.

Without warning,
the hatch slid open, and a Russian in a leather jacket with a buzz cut and
glasses stood in the open space in the bulkhead and stuck his head into the
cargo hold. He carried a Makarov at his side, finger indexed over the trigger
guard. His eyes immediately locked onto Aleksa on the deck. Seeing no one else
in sight, he frowned and entered the cargo hold. Then, abruptly aware of a
nearby presence through his peripherals, his eyes shifted right, widening in an
oh-shit look when he set his eyes on Avery.

From two feet
away, Avery tapped the trigger and put a single searing hot round through the
Russian’s cheek. The body collapsed straight to the deck, and blood drained
rapidly from the face wound. Avery kicked the Makarov out of the dead man’s
hand, held the GSh-18 in front of him, and pivoted around to face the open
hatchway and to stare down another Russian standing ten feet away in the
passenger cabin. Seeing his comrade go down, the Russian was already reaching
for his own weapon and screaming frantically to warn the others.

As he exploded
through the hatchway into the cabin, Avery fired twice, counting his own
rounds, and dropped the shocked Russian.

The passenger
area had been converted into a first class compartment, with high-backed, plush
leather seats positioned in fours around oak tables—two chairs facing each
other across a table—new carpeting, and a kitchenette area behind the cockpit
bulkhead.  

Two Russians were
seated, facing Avery, with laptop computers in front of them. One was already
on his feet and going for a pistol holstered at his side, while yelling out
commands in his native tongue. Avery drilled him between the eyes, and then
shifted his aim and double-tapped the man seated next to him.

Avery kept moving,
advancing down the narrow aisle of the compartment. Recalling the CQB exercises
aboard the Boeing fuselage at the Point, he moved swiftly, taking wide
deliberate steps, to cover as much ground as possible while he tracked for
targets, his eyes sweeping up and down, left to right, looking over chairs and
under tables, looking for movement or shapes of a human body. He was slightly
bent at the back, with shoulders and head leaning forward. With the adrenaline
coursing through his veins, he was suddenly oblivious to the pain in his head
and ribs.