Matt Hilton - Judgement and Wrath

Three times I fired into the water. Maybe it was a waste of ammunition, but if he was down there I didn't want him coming back uninjured. I waited for blood to find its way to the surface, but I saw no sign of it. Dantalion had used the dirty water for cover. He'd have to come up soon, and close by, but it was awkward to cover two directions at once.

'Where is he?' Bradley hissed.

'Quiet,' I snapped. I took a step backwards so that I didn't offer a target from below the water, then stood poised with my SIG, waiting for the tell-tale eruption of water as Dantalion would make his play.

But then something intervened to take away all hope of hearing Dantalion resurface. The shriek of turbines and the whop, whop, whop of rotor blades were suddenly horrendously loud above me. My first thought was that Kaufman had returned to give support from the air. But that summation lasted only as long as it took for the pilot on a loud hailer to shout orders at me.

'This is the FBI. Lower your weapon or we will be forced to shoot.'

It was a sleek black craft. One of the McDonnell Douglas 530s that SAC Kaufman had brought in for back up. The 'Little Bird' hung in the air and an FBI sharpshooter sat in the doorway with his scope aimed directly at my chest.

'Drop your weapon!'

Bad luck was coming my way in spades that day.

To the chopper crew I was the one standing over a severely wounded man and it must have looked like my gun that was responsible for shooting him. Fair enough under the circumstances, but no way was I about to give up my weapon; not when I knew that Dantalion was close by and would be seeking revenge.

It left me only one recourse. I rushed headlong into the long grass. The sharpshooter immediately fired and high velocity rounds peppered the earth behind me and cut fronds from the grass so that they sifted around me. I ran harder. The chopper had the advantage of a hawk's-eye view, not to mention a heat-seeking FLIR scope that would pick me out in seconds, but to stand still meant giving up my weapon and leaving me vulnerable to the killer under the water. I ran full sprint, slashing at the tough grass with my Ka-bar, trying to get out of the line of sight of the chopper pilot. It would take him the best part of thirty seconds to bring the chopper about, realise I was out of sight, then decide to switch to the heat-seeking camera on the nose of the cockpit. In that time I would be in a more opportune position to protect myself from the over-eager sharpshooter.

The loud hailer sounded again and the McDonnell Douglas swooped overhead, the downwash of the rotors knitting the grass over my head. As soon as it was beyond me I turned on my heel and sprinted back to Bradley.

Bradley had heaved himself up on to his elbows in the few seconds I'd been gone. I crashed out of the long grass and skidded to a halt at his side. His face was full of pain, and not a little bewilderment.

'What are they doing?'

'They think I'm the fuckin' bad guy,' I told him. And I was going to have to put them right. The problem being I still had a wounded man to protect from his would-be killer. 'Sorry, Bradley, but this might hurt.'

I grasped him under his armpits, pulled him bodily on top of me so that he was sitting in my lap like an overgrown child. Then I jammed the Ka-bar into the earth beside me, and held my right arm high, so that the sharpshooter could see I had my finger through the trigger guard, but that my SIG was suspended upside down and no immediate threat.

'Holy shit!' Bradley said, with the realisation that I was going to use him as a shield. 'What if they shoot me?'

'They won't do that,' I told him, confidently. 'And anyway, you're wearing a Kevlar vest.'

'They could hit my head!'

'Nah, they'll fire for centre mass. Only sure way of hitting the target.'

'What about the killer? He won't think twice about shooting me in the head.'

'Then you'll just have to count on me getting him first.'

'Goddamn?…'

'Yeah,' I agreed. 'Not good odds, Bradley, but it's all we've got at the minute.'

Then I told him what I wanted him to do.

We sat like that until the gunship did a loop and returned to its starting position. The chopper hovered over us and once again I was in the sights of the sniper scopes. My head was the only visible target, but my emphatic gesturing with the upside-down gun meant that I wasn't going to experience my last moments with the smell of Bradley's fear in my nostrils.

A second 'Little Bird' screamed into view. This one was about two hundred yards out, and it swept over the open field from the west. Passing over the top of the first chopper, it tilted and raced off over the long grass behind me. The combined roar of both choppers drowned out both Bradley's and my exhortations for them to back off.

Out of the side door of the nearest chopper, a black garbed Hostage Rescue Team trooper rappelled to the floor. He was armed with an assault rifle and he took up a crouched covering position while two more members of the team dropped from the guts of the chopper like large black spiders on fat webs. Once the two exchanged positions with him, the first agent came towards us, his gun braced to his shoulder. The 'Little Bird' swooped away and finally I could hear myself think.

The FBI agent's voice rang loud and clear.

'Drop the weapon, Hunter. Now!'

I wasn't surprised he recognised me. He was one of the men SAC Kaufman had been communicating with from the headset. Whatever Kaufman had told him, he wasn't taking any chances. Truth was, even with my gun in an awkward upside-down position, I could manipulate it faster than the human eye could follow and could've shot him.

'Lose the fucking weapon.' To emphasise the command he leaned into his rifle so that it drew a bead on my forehead.

'The killer is still out there,' I shouted back. 'I wounded him, but he's still dangerous. I'm not dropping my gun.'

'The perp's our problem now. I have orders from SAC Kaufman to make you stand down.'

'Bradley is my problem, and I don't stand down until I know he's no longer in danger.'

Switching tack, the anonymous agent said to Bradley, 'Mr Jorgenson, we are here to protect you. You need immediate medical assistance. We can't offer that while Hunter is armed. Tell him to stand down.'

'Look,' I said. 'We're on the same side here. Let's cut the crap and get Bradley the hell away from here. I'm going after Dantalion.'

'You aren't going after anyone.' He'd taken another step forward. The two back-up agents had also moved to flank me. I was the proverbial fish in the barrel. But out there in the water lurked a more dangerous creature in need of spearing.

Rising up from behind Bradley, I lifted the SIG so it was clear to all. 'I'm going to holster my weapon, but that's as far as it goes. You can load Bradley into one of those birds, but I'm staying.'

'Step away from Mr Jorgenson,' said the first agent as though I hadn't spoken. 'The FBI will deal with this situation now. You do not have official sanction in this matter, Hunter. You are no longer on active duty and do not work with our government's agreement. If you refuse to step away you will be arrested for obstructing a federal agent.'

I stepped away.

I pushed the SIG into the waistband at the back of my jeans. One of the HRT agents came and laid a hand on Bradley's shoulder. He took a grip on the cloth of Bradley's shirt and pulled him round and away from me. As if I was the bad guy. The other two covered me with their rifles, but I was gratified to note that neither tried to disarm me. Not immediately.

I indicated the Ka-bar, hilt deep in the silt. 'I'm taking that as well.'

I stooped and picked up the knife. As I rose from my crouch I was already pivoting. The Ka-bar is a man-killer. To kill is its primary function, and all other applications of the fighting knife are side-products of its design. Not that I was about to kill an FBI agent in the correct execution of his duty. I used only the butt-end to thrust into the midriff of the man nearest me. He was wearing armour, but my blow was delivered with all the power of my upswinging arm and the force went directly through the vest and into his internal organs. Wind rushed out of his wide open mouth, even as I whipped the rifle out of his grasp and turned it on the first agent. I hurled the rifle at him, end over end. His reaction was to bat it away with the barrel of his own gun. And into the space he'd left me I stepped and launched a kick that caught him in the juncture of his thighs. He was wearing a box, but it didn't make a difference. Not when my shin lifted him a hand's width off the floor. I jumped in as he landed on his face, kicking away his gun with the side of my foot.