Jaxson (9 page)

Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard.

'Cause Hell's broke loose in Georgia and the Devil deals it hard.

And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold,

But if you lose the devil gets your soul.

Charlie Daniels

The chaos surrounding the school was incredible
.
Jax looked at it, biting back at the anger rising inside him as he parked his truck near Kehau's building.
At
least three injured nearby, and
by the uniform,
a campus cop who looked
as if
he'd been hacked apart
.
Machetes
.
Oh
,
damn
.
I’ll bet
anything they're on some
hard drugs
.

Stepping out and swinging up into the bed, he opened the lockbox residing there
.
Blades sat in their sheaths, hooked on to a web belt
.
“Damn it,” Jax cursed as he realized what was wrong.

Normally, he kept a rifle in the lockbox. That rifle was currently sitting in Xavier’s armory, disassembled. Somehow he’d forgotten that tiny little detail.

At least I’ve got my pistol and my kukri. Note to self, fix this later.
And he went back to dressing.

People glanced at him as they ran past, moving down the hill as quickly as they could
.
Jax paid no heed at all, he was back in that
familiar
place
.
Where there was no need to rush, no need to hurry
.
He was not a well-rounded man who understood all things
.
But he’d had a first-rate education at the school of the rifle, pistol
,
and blade
.
He knew how to protect the things he loved the most.

Jax belted it all on, loos
en
ing retaining straps on his knives and axe as he looked up toward the building grimly, rolling back the cuffs of his sleeves
to the elbows.
It was a reflex habit from his time deployed
.
Heavy metal gauntlets slid over his hands, as he recited the creed t
aught at the School of Infantry.

Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.

The sound of motorcycle engines filled the air
.
Four men in Ja
ë
ger’s trademark outfit
:
camouflage pattern German-style greatcoat
s and a variety of helmets
, rolled up to the curb beside his truck
.

They parked, dismounted, and began to disrobe; beneath were tac-vests loaded down with weapons, knives,
and magazines of ammunition
.
Wearing greatcoats allowed the men to
easily
conceal their gear while in transit to a job site
.

"How many?" Marius asked.

"No clue
.
Can't be more than two dozen
.
They've got
Machete
s though
.
Probably jumped up on Angel dust or
heroin
."

"Not good."

"Nope
.
Dance studio is on the third floor at a dead end
.
We make entry here, secure both stairwells
,
and move up
.
Rendezvous in the parallel hallway."

Marius rubbed his jaw
.
"Gonna have to run uneven teams
.
Who do you want for the duo?"

"Myself and Joachim.
I know the layout and so does
Donny,
so we'll go up the back
.
Meet near the studio."

"Simple enough
.
Just don't let Old Man Murphy hear about it."

"Or Emperor
Mong."

“Hey, Joachim, you're still a virgin right? We need to make a sacrifice to appease the Elder gods!”

Joachim didn't look back but the upraised middle finger on his left hand gave the team a reason to laugh.

"Are you the police?"
a
voice called out to them
.
The
Japanese
man in the suit looked visibly shaken at the sight of the dead and wounded.

“And you are?”

“Ken Ahuna, Dean of the School.”

"We’re
with
the police
,
" Jax answered
.
"Get everybody away from the building
.
Now."

Spying a man in
a
maintenance uniform, Jax approached him
.
"I need you to shut down the power."

"Gimme a minute to get around back."

"Hustle
.
Soon as the power goes out, we're headed in there to kill some bastards."

As the maintenance man shuffled off,
the Ja
ë
ger men
stacked up beside the door, just out of sight
.
Jax dialed Sam’s number again.

“You're at HPU already?”

“You pay me for results remember?”

“Fair enough
.
What’ve you got?”

“Looks like multiple assailants, Machetes, no guns so far.”

“How soon will you make entry?”

“Next thirty seconds or thereabouts.”

“Smart man.”
A pause
.
“SWAT
t
eam commander’s been notified you’re on site
.
It’s Balanay.
” He p
ause
d.
”I wish I was there with you
,
” Sam declared in a wistful voice.

“I know
,
” Jax replied
.
Suddenly the lights went out in the building
.
“Gotta run, making entry now.”

Jax moved sil
ently through the halls as Joachim
covered his rear
.
Near the corner, he heard heavy breathing and the sound of somebody drinking loudly from a fountain
.
His left fist went up as he paused for a peek
.
One finger went up, then a knife hand
.

One man with a knife
.

Joachim
flashed it back to him and Jax stepped around the corner
.
The man was still turned away from him
.

Target acquired.

The kukri on his left hip silently slid out of its sheath. Jax stepped forward and pivoted as he brought the kukri down in fast slash. Machete man never knew what hit him and died instantly.
It was a company rule ever since a job in Congo went bad that people with any kind of knife died first in close quarters
.
Jax had no pity for him.

Chose to be violent against innocent people, now you'll learn the price for your actions
.

Joachim
caught one roving, and from the sounds of it, the others had similar numbers
.
Experienced sentries would've known to keep within eyesight and hearing of each other
.
These had no experience, and they paid for the lack
of it
with their lives
.

“
Tough shit
,”
the veterans would later say amongst each other
.
That was the price of being in the business.

Hollywood always made it look like the heroes would take the bad guys with their Kung fu
-
Matrix
-
ninja
-
martial arts skills and just handcuff them all
.
Maybe if the situation were better, they could've chanced it
.
But with so many hostages, the only option was to move as hard and fast as possible
.

The duo rendezvoused with the rest of the team one hallway over from the studio
.
Hand-signs flashed as the team rolled into a single file line moving down the hall on cat feet
.
Jax thought he could hear somebody yelling and ranting away
.
Xavier, their point man, dropped to a knee as he checked around the corner
.
Six fingers
.
A knife hand, followed by his hand held in an "O" shape and his fist opening and closing
.
Six targets with knives, no booby traps in sight
.

Jax was second in line and he felt an old feeling rise up inside of himself
.
A smile slipped into place
.
The cold, terrible one Gunny Adams called it, a wide, teeth bared snarling grin
.
Any time someone saw it, they knew something crazy was about to happen
.
And now that death's head rictus made itself known
.
He nodded his assent, tapped Xavier on the ass so he knew to move
,
then followed him
.
Time slowed as he charged around the corner,
pistol
up and firing.

*****

Kehau had gathered the students around her, doing her best to calm fears and wipe away tears
.
Sione stood in the center of the room, holding a gun in one hand and a
tall
bottle of vodka in the other
.
He would look around the room anxiously
,
then take a pull straight from the bottle, occasionally making jokes with his fellow hostage-takers
.

If he hasn't changed his routine, he's
probably drinking on an empty stomach
,
Kehau realized
.
He’d definitely be feeling the effect of the alcohol soon.

"We've got nothing to worry about
,
keikis
,
" she said soothingly
.

"But they have guns
,
Ms
.
Makoa!"
a
student protested
.

"Leilani, do you know what stops a bad man with a gun?"

Leilani shook her head
.
"No."

"A good man with a gun
.
And there's a whole bunch of police headed this way.”

“Shut up!”
o
ne of the other masked men in the room barked at her.

Unt
il the day she died, Kehau would never forget what happened right then
.
The men standing in the hallway went down, blood, bone
,
and brains flying everywhere
.
There was no sound, aside from the strange popping noise made as their heads
explod
ed like gore-filled balloons
.
Instantly she threw herself in front of the students trying to push them all into the corner
. “Turn around and close your eyes, keikis!” she screamed
.

The man standing nearest the door
wheeled around and started to step
through it
.
His Uzi wasn’t even fully up b
efore he fell back into the room, a massive knife of some kind stuck in his neck. Blood splattered against the doorframe in thick red spurts.
The ch
ildren were crying
, and Sione was panicking
.
He motioned for the other masked man to move toward the door
.
The man hesitated, shook his head
.
That was when a canister rolled into the studio
.
Smoke filled the air
.
Now she couldn’t see anything
.

From the direction of the door area where the other man had been standing, she heard
a double thump.
Sione stumbled to the window, coughing and hacking every step of the way
.
The window cracked open and the smoke started to drift outside.

That was when five men appeared, wearing body armor and holding guns
.
They formed a semi-circle around Sione
.
One of the men was covered from head
-
to
-
toe in blood and ichor
.
She couldn’t make out his face for the grinning skull
faced—
mask
.
He looked like an avenging angel of death.

That mask gives me nightmares
.
Don't want to see the man underneath at all
.
He probably wears it for good reason.

Sione turned to see the men standing
less than
a dozen feet away.

"Sione Akamaka, you are under arrest
,
" one of them announced
.

Sione looked at them, a wild crazed glance before he started to swing his
gun
up toward the children in the corner, finger depressing the trigger as it went.

Several things happened at once:
in a flash, Skullface threw
himself at Sione, as the two nearest the children dove in front of them
. Sione and Skullface
collided against the wall in a THUMP, but the stranger came up first
.
He slugged Sione’s jaw with a gauntleted fist, breaking i
t as a spray of teeth and spit followed.

Still, the wounded Sione tried to fight, which only seemed to enrage the giant assaulting him
.
Picking Sione up over his head, like he was weightless, the giant pitched him through the opened window in an explosion of glass and a roar.

Sione fell out of sight, and Kehau imagined she could hear the sound of his body hitting the ground
two
stories below.

There was a groan from one of the officers in front of her as he rolled to his feet
.
"Feels like I got kicked by a damned mule!"

Why does that voice sound familiar
?

He turned her way and she saw two silvery looking dimples in his chest
.

Those are bullets
.
Oh my god those are bullets
! she
mentally screamed.

"Ma'am, are you and the kids okay?"

“I want my mommy,” Leilani cried out.

“We’re gonna get you there in a quick moment, sweetheart,” the man assured her, then turned back to Kehau.

"Nothing we
can’t
fix later
,
" she told him.

"Good, have them hold
hands and keep
their eyes
closed
, then follow us please."

The man in the skull mask went through the door first, then two more men
.
Leading the children by hand, Kehau followed in their footsteps as they traveled down the hall and out of the building, the last two men at her rear
.
By her count there had to be eight bodies in the hallway, shot or stabbed to death, or in the case of a thug in her cl
assroom, head neatly cut off like a chicken in a butcher shop.
No reason for the kids t
o see that, I hope they all kept their eyes closed.

At the building entrance, the man in the mask paused
.
Standing behind him, she wondered what he was waiting for
.
Pausing, he clicked the safety on, then
lowered his gun on his hip and
yelled out to the police forming a perimeter outside
,
“Coming out
!
All hostages alive and well
!
All tangos down!"

She knew that voice
!
But there was no way he’d be here
.
He was just a consultant, right
?
And he's mad at me.
The question wouldn’t leave her alone though, and she couldn’t hear anything else
.
Officers rushed into the building as paramedics took the children and began looking them over to check for any injuries as parents watched fearfully
.
Kehau noticed none of it.

The big man had pulled off his mask as he spoke to a pair of officers, but he was still facing away from her
.
Even with his back to her though, she recognized the sleeve tattoos running down
each
arm
.

When he turned his head to one side to address an EMT, Kehau knew it was him
.
Beyond any shadow of a doubt
—
it
was Jax
.
But what was he doing here
?
She started to walk toward him, numbly, when a police officer approached.

“
Hey
,
Jax."

"What's up, Sam?" Jax asked.

"Got some reporters asking questions."

“Live TV?" At this, Sam nodded his head.

Jax sighed. "You know I hate reporters."

"Think of them as free advertising."

"Okay, but do me one favor."

"What's that?"

"Make sure the cameras don't get turned off until I say so."

Sam smiled almost as evilly as Jax. "Deal." He walked over toward where a public affairs officer was trying to keep the reporters contained.

“Squad leaders to me, fall in!” Without another word, Jax checked his appearance in a car window one last time. To his right the four men with him were in a precise, neat line, weapons at their sides.

“Weapons at low ready, gents.”

Smoothly the four men complied.

“Right FACE!” Pause. “Forward, MARCH!”

He lied to me!
She watched them move toward the crowd of reporters.
He never said what kind of consultant he was
, another part of her brain spoke. Logic had no place in this argument though, not with emotions running high. Kehau was plenty mad.

“Ma’am, do you need some help?” Sam, the officer who had approached Jax, asked.

“How do you know Jax?”

“Jaxson Kuznia?”

“Yes, he’s my boyfriend. We’re… Arguing right now.”

“Well, he’s about to be on camera. Follow me.”

He led her to a command vehicle of some sort where the operators were enthralled watching as Jax and the other men marched up onto the dais behind the microphones.

“My name is Jaxson Kuznia. I am the CEO of Jaëger Guard LLC. I am a veteran of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, as are all the men behind me. We provide tactical training and support to organizations like Honolulu PD. Today, we received word that a hostage takeover had occurred on Hawaii Pacific University’s Kaneohe Campus. We made entry, neutralized all threats, and secured the hostages. Questions?”

The stunned reporters looked at him as if he’d grown a new head. One of them, more astute than his colleagues, raised a hand.

“Mr. Kuznia, when you say neutralized, do you mean killed?”

“Of course.”

“What gives you the right to do that?”

“There were twenty-nine children in that room. Which of them would you like to see dead?”

“But, but…”

“Which of those children deserved to die today?”

That question skewered him like a deer caught in headlights, and he wisely chose to shut his mouth before he made more of a fool out of himself.

“They were a group of Nanakuli boys, drugged up on heroin or PCP, maybe both, with Machetes, guns, and a room full of hostages. As it is, one of my men took two rounds to his bulletproof vest when Sione Akamaka tried to shoot at the children and their teacher.”

Kehau was furious. She turned to Sam. “So he’s not a consultant?”

“He is. But it’s not all he does.” Sam gestured at the building behind her. “When crazy assholes decide to hurt people, Jax and one of his teams get sent in to deal with it.”

Logic started to speak up, and Kehau batted it aside. She hated lies and half-truths. Absolute honesty. All the time. Something her relationship was obviously lacking.

“I really need to go home right now. Can you have somebody grab my bags from inside and escort me to my bike please?”

He looked her over curiously. Whatever he wanted to ask though, he kept to himself. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll radio for somebody to bring them out.”

“Thank you.”

The whole ride home, Kehau was silent. Her mind was still in shock over what she’d seen. Why hadn’t he told her what he did for a living? Was it so hard to say
I teach people how to kill
. Then again, maybe it was.
Trust.
That was what it came down to. Obviously he didn’t trust her enough to tell her everything.
What other secrets was he hiding from her?
Why was he so resistant to her?

“Hey, Sam, you see a dark-haired wahine around here, wearing gray yoga pants and a Kahuku shirt?”

“About same height as you, green eyes?”

“Yeah that’s the one,” Jax confirmed.

Sam shook his head as he sidled up beside Jax. “Tell me something, brudda, did you ever have the chat with this wahine?”

“What chat? Where is she?” Jax demanded.

“She left right in the middle of your press conference. And by the look on her face, seems she had no clue what you do for a living. She did not take it well.”

Jax’s face fell. “You told her, didn’t you?”

“Well you obviously didn’t. Man up and tell her.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“That’s go fuck yourself ‘uncle’.”

Jax started to walk away.

“You don’t get to walk away, boy!” Sam barked.

Jax turned to face him. “So I do what, Uncle?”

“Tell her the truth about yourself, damn it!”

“And what if I want to try to fix things with her?”