Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (38 page)

Between their cover and the enemy were two nearly empty sleds,
resulting in an up-close-and-personal free-fire zone, both forces
beating back against each other as they moved across the tundra.
Aslan took advantage of the chaos caused by the grenade blast and
began returning fire with his HK417. One, two, three, the enemy began
dropping like flies under the sniper's precision fire. Identifying
where their cover was weak, Aslan effectively put shots through
pallets of dry goods and other sundries. It was an effective tactic
until he took a round through the shoulder.

The Kazakh sniper howled. The parasympathetic reaction of his
body upon being struck by a 5.56mm round was to pitch backwards. Nate
watched as the sniper fell right off the back of the sled, dropping
into a heap in the snow behind them.

“Fuck my life,” he said to himself, the words lost amidst all
the gunfire.

Turning his attention back to the firefight, he saw one of
the Chinese soldiers sprinting straight across the open sleds toward
their position. It was a suicidal maneuver at best. The former Marine
leveled his weapon, his trigger finger applying pressure a nanosecond
too late. The Chinese commando bent at the knees as he approached and
launched himself into the air. Spiraling through the open space in
some kind of Olympic backflip, Nate struggled to get his sights on
target, hopelessly squeezing off round after round from his
Kalashnikov.

Shun landed behind the pallet with a thud, a side kick instantly
delivered to Nate's midsection. His ribs exploded in pain, doubling
him over. The Kazakh mercenary nearby was not so lucky. He didn’t
even have the chance to move his rifle barrel from downrange toward
his new target, the sprint and jump had been nothing short of a
display of inhuman abilities.

The genetically enhanced commando swung both of his firsts
toward either side of the Kazakh’s head, slamming into his skull
like twin pistons, which effectively pulped his brain. The Kazakh
fell dead instantly. Unable to catch his breath, Nate had done his
best to crawl away, dragging his rifle behind him. Shun snorted in
disgust at the sight of the Marine trying to keep himself in the
fight. Kicking the Kalashnikov away, he then lifted Nate with one
hand and threw him forward onto the empty sled.

“Leave him to me!” Shun yelled to his comrades.

Two remaining Oculus gunmen lowered their weapons. By now it was
dark and the only light came from those on the tractor. The shadows
played across the Oculus commando’s face as he looked toward Nate.

“Yankee garbage,” he sneered at the American.

Shun strode over to Nate and crouched down.

“How does it feel to know that you are about to die, just as
your country is? How does it feel to realize that you are utterly
helpless and impotent in the face—”

Shun froze in mid-sentence, his face turning the color of
ash. Seven inches of ice axe were sticking out of the side of his
neck. Nate pulled backwards, yanking the serrations of the axe
through Shun’s throat, casting a spray of blood.

“Semper Fi, you motarded motherfucker.”

Shun grasped his neck, his hands slick with the liquid as he made
one last futile effort to stop his life from draining from his body.
With a gurgle of blood bubbling from his lips, Shun’s hands fell
away and he lay still.

Nate reached inside his jacket and pulled free his Glock
19 pistol.

The two Oculus commandos who had been watching, expecting Shun to
brutally mutilate Nate with his bare hands, now looked at each other.

In unison, they both dived off the edge of the sled into the
snow.

* * *

Deckard rolled through the snow with Jiahao. The two
tumbled over one another, wrestling for control. The American pushed
his Glock into Jiahao’s chest and pulled the trigger, but somehow
his adversary managed to slap the pistol to the side at the very last
moment. Rolling to the bottom of the embankment, Jiahao planted a
foot on Deckard’s stomach and launched him into the air, flinging
him into the snow. His Glock went spinning away into a snow drift.

Having escaped the collapsing tunnel, the two now found
themselves outside in the darkness of night. The moon cast the snow
in surreal, muted colors, gusts of wind blowing snow around the two
men. Winded, but not out of the fight, Deckard rolled over and drew
his ice tool and axe, holding one in each hand.

Jiahao stood and dusted the snow off his parka with a laugh.

“You are a funny one, Deckard,” the Chinese commando mocked
him. “But sure, OK.”

Deckard assumed a fighter’s stance, readying himself for
combat. Jiahao bounded forward, parrying left, then right, easily
avoiding Deckard as he flailed with both weapons. With one of
Deckard’s arms out at full extension at the bottom of a swing,
Jiahao reached over and wrenched his opponent’s wrist, snapping it
like a twig. The Chinese commando tore the axe away and cast it into
the snow, then snatched away the ice tool as Deckard tried to
backpedal.

The Samruk mercenary instantly knew that this was how Pat had
felt. He was simply outclassed. It wasn’t that he was outmatched by
a margin, like when Delta Force operators went head to head in a
shooting competition, or when Rangers competed to see who could run a
faster two miles in full kit. No, Deckard was inferior by a
landslide, an avalanche that was cascading down on top of him.

Knowing his right hand was broken, Deckard reached around
with his left and unsheathed his Company Knife, searching for an
opening in Jiahao's defenses. The truth was that the commando did not
have any defense; he was pure offense, moving so fast that Deckard
could not even touch him. Jiahao reached out and did something too
quickly for Deckard to recognize. All he knew was that the knife had
been torn from his grasp. Jiahao smiled as he tossed the blade over
his shoulder.

Jiahao then shook his head before launching into a crescent kick.
Deckard bucked backwards, avoiding the brunt of it, but the glancing
blow off of his head was nearly enough to knock him unconscious.
Falling to his knees, Deckard propped himself up with one hand in the
snow.

“Shall we end this charade?” Jiahao said, sounding almost
bored.

Beneath him, Deckard could feel the gentle vibrations of
the device, still humming away in some collapsed chamber under the
ice. He was only going to get one more chance at this. Deckard knew
that it would only take one more solid hit from the Oculus leader to
kill him.

Jiahao reached down and grabbed Deckard by the hood of his
jacket, pulling him up. On his way, Deckard reached out with a gloved
hand, going right up into Jiahao’s groin. His fingers clasped
around a smooth egg under Jiahao’s trousers. The Chinese commando
drew a sharp breath as Deckard crushed one of his nuts with all of
the strength he had left. The testicle exploded in his hand like an
overripe tomato.

Dropping to the ground, Jiahao clutched his beanbag in agony, his
howls and cries carrying in the wind. Meanwhile, Deckard felt like he
had been run over by a tank from the beating he had taken. His body
had red-lined a long time ago, and now it was simply running on some
kind of muscle memory developed through years of military training
and combat experience.

“Damn, you talk too much,” Deckard mumbled as he stumbled
off, leaving Jiahao to mourn his manhood. “All this bullshit about
Red China and the end of the world. Don’t you ever shut up?”

Jiahao rolled back and forth sobbing. Not even the Chinese
version of Captain America had steel balls, apparently. Deckard
groaned as he got down on a knee and started pawing through the snow.
His knees ached, his elbows ached, every muscle in his body felt like
a frozen T-bone steak. His hand hung limply as he held it against his
chest. It didn’t phase him much, but he knew the pain would come
soon.

Batting the snow around with his good hand, he continued
his search.

The Chinese super soldier whimpered as he tried to breath.

“OK, dammit,” Deckard cursed. “I’ll have some of that
General Tso's chicken.”

The mercenary looked up at the dark horizon for a second,
realizing that the ground had ceased to shake under his feet. With a
smirk, he went back to digging around. The device had finally burned
itself out or run out of power. Now it was buried under tons of ice
and going nowhere fast, if ever.

“Ah, here we go,” Deckard said as he reached into the snow.
“
Shall we end this charade?
” he said in a whiny,
high-pitched voice.

He winced as he stood, taking a deep breath as he righted
himself. Jiahao was coughing like he had the dry heaves, his face
having turned bright red. Standing above him, Deckard angled the
muzzle of his Glock toward Jiahao’s head.

Jiahao looked up at him, a flash of fury crossing his eyes once
more.

The Glock spat five bullets, making another patch of white snow
turn red.

Chapter 36

China

Crickets chirped and a stream gently gushed alongside the
finely manicured lawns of the imperial garden. Zhongnanhai was a
place of peace and tranquility, a place of culture and tradition,
where communist party officials carried out their administrative
tasks. Inside one of the many pavilions on the compound, the
stillness was suddenly broken.

Black and white pieces of a game board flew through the
air, a door slammed, and a communist party leader disappeared into an
adjacent room as he attempted to regain control over his emotions.
The pieces of the board game lay scattered between two men who sat on
antique chairs crafted during a past dynasty. The monochromatic game
pieces belonged to an encirclement board called
wei bo
. It was
a game of both encirclement and counter-encirclement.

“He did not take that well,” the Iranian said.

“Would you?” the Russian countered.

The Iranian’s brow furrowed, his short white beard
shifting beneath his jowls. Well into his middle years, the Iranian
was the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s covert action
branch—Quds Force. Like the Russian, he had been summoned to
Beijing to oversee the final stages of a plan that had been years in
the making. Now that plan lay in ruin, scattered across the game
board in chaos.

“Perhaps not. Do you know the relation?”

“His grandson,” the Russian answered, his expression flat and
unreadable.

“They both knew the risks.”

“My people will not be pleased by this development. The Kremlin
may very well have me liquidated for this.”

“They have no exposure. The Americans are already
ramping up to strike ISIS in the Middle East. The misdirection was a
master stroke by the old man,” the Quds Force leader said, nodding
toward the door the Chinese official had just exited. “You know
what the Chinese say about a win-win situation?”

“I imagine there is some clever proverb.”

“Indeed. In a win-win situation, China wins twice. Even
if we lose, we still win. America sinks itself back into another
protracted, unwinnable conflict in the Middle East, giving us
increased freedom of movement to pursue our own objectives.”

“We will see.”

The Iranian shook a cigarette out of his pack and lit it up,
seemingly unconcerned by the massive operational failure they had
been dealt by the American mercenaries.

“At the most, this will be attributed to terrorists from
Chechnya, Iraq, and Xiangyang. The back-up plan for the back-up
plan,” the Iranian said, leaning over and picking up the
encirclement board. Setting it down on the table, he took another
drag on his cigarette and looked over at the Russian.

“Why don’t we play another game?”

* * *

Will walked out of the office building in Tampa, muttering
something to the security guard on the way out. Having worked through
the entire crisis, Will was now in desperate need of a shower, a
shave, and a solid eight hours of sleep. Instead, he was planning to
visit his favorite titty bar downtown.

“Fuck me,” he said, popping a cigarette between his lips as
he thought over recent events. “Chalk up a win for the good guys.”

He lit up with his stainless-steel lighter, on the side of which
was engraved an anchor, trident, and eagle. Images from a past life.

Deckard had managed to pull off the impossible, all while the
American government and people were distracted by a dozen other
emergencies at home and abroad. Whatever had happened, they would now
have to convince their own bureaucracy that America was under attack
by Iran, Russia, and China. For the first time, Will had the proof.
But would anybody listen?

Reaching into his pocket, Will thumbed the automatic lock
remote for his car, opened the door, and sat down in the driver’s
seat.
Exhaustion was washing over him as his body dumped the
adrenaline he had been running on for days.

Looking down at his wrist, Will eyed the red metal
bracelet he had worn for decades. Many intelligence analysts wore
black KIA bracelets for fallen soldiers, a reminder of who they are
supporting, and of the life-and-death consequences of their work.
Will’s was for a former soldier who was officially listed as
missing in action in some Third World shithole. As hard as he tried,
he could never get the full story out of anyone, maybe because no one
knew the truth.

Starting the car, he pulled out of the parking lot,
through the security checkpoint, and out onto the highway. Staring
out at the road in front of him, Will shook his head. Suddenly, he
broke out laughing.

“Something wrong with that family,” he said under his breath
between laughs. “His father was a piece of work too.”

The red MIA bracelet slipped out from his shirt sleeve as he spun
the wheel. It read,
Sergeant Sean Deckard. Missing in action.
20JUL88.