David Golemon - Ripper

As Jack stood still next to the entry point, he listened intently. When he heard no movement he quickly risked a look through the damaged brick. He saw no movement. Then the front bank of lights went out, meaning that the remaining man was in the back at the breaker box. He bent low and squeezed through the hole, scraping his back against the damaged brick as he did, but he wasn’t feeling any pain at that moment. As he entered, he straightened and heard the lone man in the back call out to his partner whose job it was to seal the holes leading to the outside.

“As soon as you’re done, head down that elevator and join the strike team,” the voice echoed from the back.

Jack quickly looked around in the semidarkness and his eyes fell on the silenced weapon that the recently deceased man had been carrying. He reached down and retrieved the heavy automatic. It was a Glock nine with a large noise suppressor attached. Collins placed his own weapon back into his waistband and then made sure the dead perp’s weapon was loaded and charged. It was. He heard the curtain leading to the back room part and as he sped, the second man came through with a mop and bucket. Jack stepped into the darkened aisle. He caught the man’s attention as he stood straight, knowing he had placed his silhouette directly in the killer’s line of sight.

“You get the holes sealed?” the man asked as he leaned the mop against the glass counter. The man stood still when the figure standing in the aisle didn’t respond. Jack realized that the man he was facing most definitely had years of military training as he didn’t hesitate in reaching for his weapon.

Jack’s training was far better and practiced for many more years. He raised the silenced weapon and shot four times in rapid succession. The first two rounds struck the man in both shoulders, making his gun hand go numb and forcing the weapon from his paralyzed grasp. The second set of rounds struck him in the upper thighs, sending him crashing into the glass case filled with jewelry. As Collins approached, he heard the moaning of the perpetrator as he tried to extricate himself from the shattered glass of the case. Collins on his way past reached down and grabbed his collar, pulling him free and ruthlessly dragging him along until he was through the curtain and into the brighter area of the storage room. He let the man fall to the floor as he scanned the area like an automaton to make sure he was the only one left in the pawn shop. His eyes fell on the blood the man had missed when he was cleaning.

The blue eyes of Collins managed to lock on several things at once. The door to the rear office was open and he could see the damaged desk and computer where the anesthetized dart system had been activated. Then he saw the two army cots where the results of the booby trap were lying, unmoving. With a stern countenance he walked up to the cots and fired two not-so-silent rounds into the men’s foreheads, making their bodies jump with the impact of the bullets. Collins was on automatic, and anyone that knew him would have realized that Jack could be a cold and proficient killer.

When he saw that the shop was indeed empty, he returned to the bleeding man who was trying to hold the wounds to his thighs with his two broken arms. Collins reached down and with one arm swung the man up and onto one of the dead he had just killed now lying still on the cot. Jack then looked down at the man, unscrewed the now, damaged silencer, and pulled it free of the Glock. His eyes locked on the man writhing in pain. As the wounded man opened his eyes, they widened when he saw up close who he was dealing with. He shook his head to try to clear the pain that wracked his mind as Collins continued to look the man over.

“Son, anything you tell me that doesn’t have the ring of truth to it will bring on pain such as you’ve never known. Normally I’m not a cruel person. I treat enemies by the rule book, even terrorists.” Jack ejected the clip in the Glock, pulled back the slide, and popped the lone bullet from the weapon. He then tossed the gun on the floor and pulled Alice’s weapon from his waistband. “But you are neither a warrior nor even a terrorist with an agenda. You are a mercenary who gets money for wet work — a traitor.” Jack leaned over to make sure the man was hearing him. “I am a colonel in the United States Army, and son, you fucked with the wrong man at the wrong time.”

“Colonel, I … I … was … am a former member of the SAS. I work for men that want no harm to come to this country. I—”

Jack simply reached out and hit the man with the barrel of the nine millimeter, smashing and breaking his nose and sending blood out in a spray where it hit Collins in his face and shirt.

“The queen must be proud of one of her boys that would kill innocent men and attempt to kill unarmed women. I don’t think she would approve of your job choices, son.”

“Please, don’t—”

The gun barrel again. This time it was on the left thigh directly over the large hole where the nine millimeter round had entered. “I talk, you listen.”

The man could only nod his head as the pain from the blow coursed through his system.

“Good. I have your attention then?”

The mercenary nodded again, tears streaming from his eyes from the blow to his shattered nose.

“The man’s name leading the assault, who is he?”

“Ssssmith,” he struggled to answer.

Whack , a blow was delivered to the other thigh, bringing a silent scream of pain as the man rolled to one side. “Smith, that’s all I know.”

“The lie meter says you’re telling the truth,” Jack said as he pulled the man back into position for further questions. “How many on the strike team?”

“Twelve,” the man said, managing to open his eyes as the weapon was raised again. “Twelve, I swear! Your security team eliminated four of us!”

Jack closed his eyes for the briefest moment when he heard that his men had managed to take four of the attackers down. Then he opened his eyes and became that cold and calculating killer again.

“The woman that was taken, is she dead?”

“No, she was taken below,” the killer said as he cried in pain.

“Your mission?”

“To … destroy … the formula … from Mexico.”

Jack pursed his lips as the words were spoken. “Who hired your team?”

“I … I … don’t get that information. My team is stationed in Arizona. We—”

Collins was done with the questions. He had enough experience in these matters to know that grunts like the man on the cot had no knowledge of the men pulling their strings. His business lay with the man named Smith. He placed the automatic to the man’s forehead before his sentence was finished and pulled the trigger.

“Thank you,” Jack said and turned for the back room.

Everett knew he was going to have to force Niles Compton from the complex as he stood before him in his office. The large monitor was on and he was watching the procedures happening at that moment down on level seventeen.

“Virginia is now in charge of the complex, Doctor. You need to get above ground and into the loving arms of the air force, and if I have to call the president to get that done, I will.”

Compton looked up at Everett and saw him set his jaw. At that moment he knew that arguing with the former SEAL would be like arguing with his boss, Jack Collins. He angrily tossed the pen he had been fiddling with onto the desktop and pushed his chair back.

“I should never have allowed that crap into this complex,” Compton said.

“I’m as much to blame as anyone. It was my duty and Jack’s to see what a potential hazard we had on our hands. It was us who saw what this stuff can do. So quit kicking yourself in the ass and I’ll get an escort for you to take you through security at gate two.”