No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller (31 page)

23

Carter ran back toward the desk and dived under it.

He threw it on its side, sending the computers flying, using the front surface as a shield. He then curled himself into the fetal position and covered his head with his arms.

Time froze.

Erina’s scream still echoed in his mind.

He held his breath and braced himself for what he expected was a grenade.

There was nothing he could do but wait.

He had to hand it to Alex. He’d thought through every scenario in detail and had kept one step ahead.

BOOM.

An ear-splitting explosion ripped through the pylon.

A hail of shrapnel whistled through the air, bouncing off the cement walls and drumming against the tabletop.

For the briefest of moments he thought he’d defied the odds and avoided being hit. Then a wave of intense pain hit him in the back.

It started just below his right shoulder and shot up his neck to the base of his skull, like he’d been jabbed from the inside with a red-hot poker.

He flinched, tensing his back muscles, and lay still. If a ligament or muscle had been severed or a bone broken, he was in trouble.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. Alex might send someone down to finish him off.

But this was no time to rush, either. He forced himself to sit upright, unzipped his wetsuit and peeled the top off his shoulders.

Another wave of searing pain made him clench his jaw.

He breathed into the pain and worked his forefinger into the wound, probing deep into his flesh.

The tip of his finger touched two pieces of rounded metal the size of cherry pips – shrapnel from a frag grenade.

The two bearings were lodged just below his right shoulder joint. They must have bounced off a wall or the stairs before slamming into him. He hadn’t exactly won the lottery, but a direct hit would’ve shattered his shoulder, making a tough situation close to impossible.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, relaxed his back muscles and dug in again, probing even deeper.

It took all his focus to counter the shooting pain.

Just when he thought he could take no more, the two smooth bearings popped out and rolled on the floor like a couple of loose marbles. He let out a jagged sigh.

Getting the shrapnel out of his body was a good start.

He pushed himself to his feet one-handed, walked over to one of the dead guys, knelt down and tore a long strip off his shirt. He stood up, wound it round his shoulder and tied it off.

The crude dressing would stem the bleeding and support his shoulder joint for a while at least.

He rotated his shoulder back, then forward.

Good enough.

Slowly, he worked his arm back into the wetsuit and zipped it up with his left hand.

He felt for his daypack in the dark, then found the table and righted it. Squatting beneath it, he would be hidden from Alex’s surveillance cameras – at least he hoped he would be.

Carter opened the daypack, shone the phone light inside and took out three drug-tipped darts and two star knives.

He stuck the darts under his tongue and slipped the ultra-slim star knives into two velcro pockets in each arm of his wetsuit, just above the inside of his wrist. It’d take an extremely thorough search to detect them.

The phone read 11.06 p.m. He turned it to full volume, set the alarm for 11.15 p.m., and stepped back out onto the third floor.

Without warning the overhead lights burst back on.

Alex’s voice boomed through overhead speakers. “If you want to see Erina and the girl again, you’ll come up the stairs to the lookout, unarmed. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

24

Carter started up the stairs toward the top level of the pylon. Perhaps Alex had planned to separate him and Erina all along, knowing it was always easier to pick off two individuals than a team.

He’d seen a map of the south-east pylon, which was open to the public. The top level was a single room known as the “indoor lookout,” which provided tourists with a view of the harbor when the weather was inclement. It had a door opening onto a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree open-air lookout deck that wrapped around the room’s four walls. The layout of the south-west pylon was the same, but the indoor room was used as a storeroom. On top of the storeroom’s roof was a gun deck, which could be reached by a pull-down metal ladder. During the Second World War the four pylons had been taken over by the military, and gun parapets were built and used as anti-aircraft posts, which were never removed.

He mounted the final set of steps, half expecting to be greeted by armed clansmen. But he saw no sign of anyone. Just a cluttered rectangular room filled with cardboard boxes of electrical equipment, more disused CCTV cameras, aluminum stepladders and cleaning equipment.

One feature stood out. The eight smallish windows that surrounded the room had been painted black, like the sliding doors on the floor below.

The door to the outdoor lookout was closed. He pushed the throbbing pain in his shoulder out of his mind and breathed in. His body might be wounded but his mind and spirit were strong and ready.

From the other side of the door he could feel the energy of Alex and his men. They’d be wielding automatic rifles, whereas he was armed with a phone, three darts and a couple of ninja star knives.

To an outsider his position would appear hopeless.

But he knew better.

In a life-and-death battle the rules were different. It took far more than mere numerical superiority and firepower. Such moments tested a man to the core, stripped him bare of everything that was false, revealing his true self and enabling him to perceive more than could be seen with the naked eye.

He glanced at the phone.

11.08 p.m.

So long as Alex resisted the urge to simply shoot him on sight the instant he stepped onto the rooftop balcony, he was in with a chance.

Knowing Alex as well as he did, he figured he’d take a perverse pleasure in tormenting him before the final execution.

Carter turned the handle and pulled the door open a crack.

“I’m coming out,” he said. “Unarmed.”

He raised his arms high and used his elbow to shove the door open.

The balcony was narrow – it was just five feet from where he stood to the chest-high ledge that surrounded the lookout – but it ran the full length of the western side of the pylon, about twenty-five yards, before disappearing around the corner at each end. He stepped through the door onto the rain-soaked floor, placing him in the dead center of the western lookout deck.

There was no room to move or hide.

The door slammed shut behind him.

He turned his head to his left.

Fifteen feet from him a clan member dressed in a Tactical Response uniform pointed an MP5 directly at his head. The butt of the weapon was pressed into the man’s shoulder and, though clearly tense and nervous, he appeared to know what he was doing.

Carter slowly turned his head to the right, keeping his hands high.

Twenty-five feet away, toward the northern end of the balcony, another clan member stood flush against the western wall. He was dressed identically to his mate and held the blade of a six-inch kris dagger against Erina’s throat.

Her eyes flicked toward him. Silver gaffer tape covered her mouth. She appeared to be unharmed apart from bruising around her right eye and a small cut on her forehead from which blood trickled down.

Vivienne was about ten feet behind Erina, tucked away in the north-west corner. She sat upright on a metal bench attached to the balcony wall with her mouth taped, hands and feet tied and her dark eyes wide open, staring at him.

Carter noticed something glint on the ledge about five feet in front of Erina – a samurai sword. He recognized the blade at once as the Drying Pole, which Alex had stolen from him. He intended to get it back.

Alex emerged from around the corner of the northern wall and stood just in front of where Vivienne sat, speaking softly into the mike of a bluetooth headset. He placed what looked like a GPS tracking device in his thigh pocket and stared at Carter with the cold-hearted intensity of a hungry predator.

The group stood frozen, as if Alex had pressed the pause button and they were waiting for him to hit play.

25

“Drop the phone,” Alex said in a calm, almost sympathetic voice. “You won’t be making any calls.”

Carter let go of it and put his foot out to break its fall. It slid across the wet floor to the cement wall opposite him.

“Zaheed,” Alex said, speaking in Indonesian. “You know what to do.”

The clansman to Carter’s left strode toward him and pushed him hard against the closed door.

Carter kept his arms raised with his hands extended high above his head.

Zaheed glared at him and jammed the MP5 muzzle into Carter’s stomach.

He then ran his hands over his torso, patting the outside of his arms and his legs, pressing his shoulder wound for good measure and sending a sharp stab of pain up his arm. But Carter didn’t care. He’d missed the star knives.

“He’s clean,” Zaheed said in Indonesian.

“Check his mouth.”

Zaheed dropped his rifle level with Carter’s crotch.

“Open wide,” Alex said. “Or he’ll blow your balls off.”

Carter opened his mouth.

Zaheed’s calloused index finger probed Carter’s gums and forced its way under his tongue.

He extracted the three darts and held them up in the light, grinning.

“Kerja baik,” Alex said.
Good work.

Zaheed threw the darts against the ledge wall, where they scattered.

A sloppy move. They might prove useful later if Carter got his hands on them.

Zaheed resumed his position fifteen feet to Carter’s left, pointing the MP5 at his head.

Carter stayed silent.

Alex swaggered past Erina like an alpha lion about to pounce on an old and weakened enemy.

Carter turned to face him, bracing himself for a physical assault.

Alex stopped a few feet in front of him and looked into Carter’s eyes.

“You’ve always been a lying, doublecrossing arsehole. And for some reason unfathomable to me, you think your shit doesn’t stink.”

He pulled his right fist back under his armpit.

Carter tensed his abdomen.

With a grunt Alex let fly, putting his whole body and spirit into the blow. His fist slammed into Carter’s solar plexus like a sledgehammer, bruising the stomach muscles and knocking the wind out of him.

“That’s for leaving me to rot in prison,” he said.

Carter bent forward, drawing in lungfuls of air, straining to keep his hands high with his palms facing Alex. He needed to maintain his poise and let the clock tick down.

“Stand up straight,” Alex said. “And keep your hands in the air.”

Carter did as he was told.

Alex again pulled his fist back and threw his whole body behind a second punch. His fist found its mark, striking Carter in the center of his rib cage with terrific force.

Carter tried to roll with the savage blow and keep his hands up but he heard a distinct crack on impact and felt a fierce pain shooting through his side.

Alex had either broken a rib or torn the cartilage away from the bone.

Beads of sweat rolled down Carter’s face. He breathed into the hurt, reminding himself that pain was just a state of mind.

Alex snarled and said, “And that’s just for being you, a fucking arsehole.”

His fist flew through the air again, aiming for the bridge of Carter’s nose.

Carter rolled his head and turned it side-on. The vicious punch struck his cheekbone, causing waves of searing pain to pulsate through his skull.

His head rang from the blow to the jaw as tears welled in his eyes. He tasted blood in his mouth. A right molar had come loose.

Alex turned and picked up the Drying Pole from the ledge. He held the sword by his side with the blade pointing down.

Carter knew what was coming.

Alex intended to prove his superiority and savor his victory, which he saw as a foregone conclusion.

He’d want to delay the deathblow as long as possible, using Carter’s old sword to complete the job.

Carter took a slow, deliberate breath. He couldn’t afford to let Alex keep playing his sadistic game and incur any further injuries.

He needed to engage him.

He looked past Alex, caught Erina’s eye and gave her a tight nod.

They weren’t beaten yet.

26

Carter clenched and unclenched his left fist and spread his weight evenly on the balls of his feet. The fight was approaching its climax and as yet he hadn’t even looked like landing a blow. But he knew it was the final shot that counted.

Another long slow breath helped push the pain in his shoulder, ribs and jaw from the forefront of his mind and lock it away.

He needed to buy a few more precious moments. Any one-on-one battle must first be fought with the eyes, then from the heart and finally through the body.

“What happened to you, Alex?” he asked. “To cause you to hate so much?”

“What do you think, man? The order was my family. Thomas was my father. You were my brother. But you used me as a pawn for all those years and when I was no longer of any use, you and Thomas deserted me when I needed you most. Now you’re going to pay for it. Face it, Carter, it’s over for you – and the order.”

“Don’t you even care that these lunatics plan to kill and injure God knows how many innocent people? It’s not too late to save them.”

Alex gave a tiny shake of the head. “You’ve never understood me, Carter. My belief is that most people are mindless sheep, barely alive. Their death doesn’t concern me one way or the other.”

Carter motioned his head toward the two clan members. “At least these two believe in something bigger than themselves. All you care about is yourself.”

“Someone has to,” Alex said.

Carter’s gaze flicked toward the clansman holding Erina. He didn’t move a muscle.

Alex took a step toward Carter. He raised the sword with two hands, drew it up behind his head and then swept the blade down, creating a swishing sound through the air.

The tip of the sword stopped half an inch from Carter’s throat.

Carter didn’t blink.

Alex motioned for Carter to move backward, south along the lookout deck.

Again, he did what he was told and began walking, one cautious step at a time. Adrenalin surged through his body, giving him a feeling of mental clarity. Alex kept pace with him, holding the sword at the side of his throat, a self-satisfied smile etched across his face.

Carter kept moving backward until the top of his calves hit a metal bench attached to the ledge. The end of the line. It wouldn’t be long now.

He glanced to his right. Zaheed had moved and now stood about fifteen feet from him, halfway down the southern lookout deck, out of the others’ line of sight. His MP5 remained trained on Carter’s head.

Alex adjusted the Drying Pole so that the tip of the blade pointed at Carter’s heart, now beating fast. Another surge of adrenalin pumped through his veins, causing him to tighten and then relax his muscles.

Some adrenalin was good. Too much drained your focus.

“Get onto the ledge,” Alex said.

Carter needed to play the game out as long as possible, so he continued to do as he was told.

Turning his back on Alex wasn’t an option, though. Carter placed his left foot on the metal bench and then his right, keeping his movements slow and deliberate.

At the northern end of the lookout Vivienne was slumped forward. Her body bent over her lap as though she couldn’t bear to watch.

His gaze searched out Erina.

She stood rigid. The other clansman still held the dagger at her throat. For the first time he read fear and doubt in her eyes.

Alex frowned and said, “I won’t tell you again.” He still held the point of the sword at Carter’s heart.

Carter used his hands to lift himself onto the nine-inch-wide ledge and sat there for a moment, thinking.

The storeroom no longer protected him from the gusting southerly wind. He was now at the mercy of the elements. He looked over his left shoulder at the three-hundred-foot drop to the ground. There was no escape that way. He turned back to Alex.

The smile had returned to his face. “Get on with it,” Alex said. “There’s no point trying to delay the inevitable.”

Carter took a slow breath, embracing the pain that ran through his body. He pulled his feet up onto the ledge and then slowly stood up, keeping his knees bent and his arms loose by his side.

“Lift them,” Alex said.

Carter raised his arms to shoulder height, making his position even more vulnerable.

He adjusted his right foot back, maintaining his balance, like he was riding a surfboard on a steep wave.

The sound of plastic flapping caused him to look up at the gun deck above the storeroom.

He couldn’t see directly onto it, but he glimpsed the black wings of what could only be a hang-glider. It explained how Alex intended to get off the pylon, save himself and most likely meet Samudra before the midnight fireworks.

Carter pulled himself up to his full height.

Alex held the Drying Pole in two hands pointing up at him.

Carter stared across the top of the polished sword into Alex’s dark brown eyes.

The clock in his head entered the final countdown.

Ten, nine, eight …

He took a slow breath in.

Alex moved one foot slightly backward, adjusted the angle of his sword and squared his shoulders. He swept the Drying Pole back with a dramatic flourish, gripping the handle tight.

His gaze dropped, signaling his intention.

He planned to cut Carter’s legs off at the knees.

Three, two, one.

The chorus from the Rolling Stones song “Street Fighting Man,” an anthem from Carter’s youth, blared at full volume from the phone lying on the deck.

His mother had played it when he was a kid. He’d always loved the lines about the sound of marching, charging feet and how the time was right for fighting in the street.

Alex’s eyes swung to the phone.

Carter was already in motion.