Greig Beck - Dark Rising

Alex walked slowly towards the small group of men Hammerson had put together for this mission. The HAWC recruitment pool was drawn from the ranks of the Green Berets, the Navy SEALS, Special Forces Alpha, and Hammerson’s old stomping ground, the Rangers. Hammerson’s job was to select the best of the best – soldiers with outstanding skills in various forms of physical or technological combat techniques. Each man or woman in this unit was a controlled killer; a force of nature unleashed by the Hammer as and when necessary. Now it was Alex’s job to test them for final preparation and mission readiness.

Alex looked analytically at each of the four men. Two he’d worked with before and two were ‘potentials’. The new men both looked to be in their thirties – battle-hardened professionals. Alex needed to get inside their heads – give them some scenarios and ask how they would resolve them; talk to them about their successes and how they’d achieved that success; about their failures and what would they do differently next time.

Alex enjoyed testing the recruits. They nearly all believed they were made of iron, world-beaters, and in their own units they probably were. But in the HAWCs they were among peers; they joined a small team of men and women as good as or better than they were. Sometimes it took a little while for them to adjust, sometimes they needed a ‘push’, and the part Alex liked best was when someone pushed back.

He looked at the four faces watching him; all had an even expression except for a mean-looking guy with red hair who was barely concealing his irritation. My money’s on you for the push-back, Alex thought.

He acknowledged the two men he knew first; each nodded once in return – Second Lieutenant Hex Winter and First Lieutenant Samuel Reid. Both had been HAWCs for a while now. Hex Winter, at just thirty, was the youngest HAWC Alex had vetted and had also come from Alpha. Hex stood about six feet four inches and only weighed in at around 190 pounds – he looked a bit like a scarecrow with a coat hanger stuck down the back of his shirt. His nose had been broken several times, his hair was white-blond, and his eyes were the pale grey of a North Atlantic storm swell – the name ‘Winter’ was appropriate indeed. When Alex had first met Hex, the thing that caught his eye was the multiple knives the lieutenant carried on one hip – unusual in an age of guns. Alex had been able to identify the standard US long-bladed Ka-Bar – his own pick due to the blade’s low chromium steel mixture, which kept a razor edge in combat. In the field you could dry shave with it. Or open a man’s throat from ear to ear before he even knew he’d been touched. But the other two were less familiar. One was a German Kampfmesser 2000, the standard knife of the elite Bundeswehr and the strike forces of the German Army. It was a beautiful weapon, a laser-cut seven-inch stainless steel alloy tanto blade with a distinctive forty-five-degree chisel-shaped end – balanced and deadly. The third was a new version Kampfmesser, the KM3000, with a spear-point blade instead of the 2000’s tanto point – not as tough, but better balance and weight for throwing.

Alex had asked for a demonstration of it in action, pointing to a crossing of beams in the waist-high fence running around the edge of the oval, more than fifty feet from where they stood. Without hesitation, Hex Winter had spun the knife in a back-handed motion at the fence. Alex’s enhanced vision had seen that the knife was going to find its mark, dead centre, before the blade had even travelled half its distance.

The young man came with a few other ‘tools of the trade’ as well, including an upgraded M24 long-gun variant sniper rifle with his own modifications – longer receiver, detachable sight on a raised rail with maximum sound suppression. It also took a more powerful. 338 Lapua magnum cartridge – accurate to 5000 feet with enormous penetration power. A beautiful and deadly precision weapon. When Alex had asked Hex about his accuracy, he’d replied that he could split Alex’s thumb at a mile. After the knife demonstration, Alex had believed him.

First Lieutenant Sam Reid, older than the others by a few years, was an electronics expert who exuded confidence and was as laidback as they came. Hammerson had personally selected Reid for HAWC training – he was a Ranger, 75th Regiment. Sam – ‘Uncle’ to his friends – was the best man on the planet for military strategy and red zone logistics, and had an IQ of 160 that put him into Mensa territory – brains as well as brawn. After Alex’s accident, his problem-solving abilities and mental acuity had become vastly superior to most men, but First Lieutenant Sam Reid was in a league of his own.

Then Alex turned to the two new men. ‘I’m Captain Alex Hunter,’ he told them, and asked for their rank and military history.

The man on the left of the line stepped forward first. He was the shortest of the group, standing at around five feet seven inches in his boots, but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in breadth – he had a barrel chest and arms like a bear. Alex also noticed his hands were extraordinarily rough and callused.

‘Second Lieutenant Rocky Lagudi,’ the man said, and saluted.

Alex grabbed the man’s hand, turned it over and looked at it. Deadly, he thought. ‘Black belt?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. Shotokan Karate 8th dan Master. Also Zen Doh Kai, 7th dan.’

All Special Forces personnel were proficient in lethal and non-lethal hand-to-hand combat methods, but Zen Doh Kai was a martial art that used deadly hard-edge striking. Alex had witnessed some full-contact bouts and it had been like watching bare-knuckle cage fighting for masochists.

Lieutenant Lagudi tried to turn his hand back over, but Alex held it – a subtle but effective test of will and strength. Rocky tried again, exerting all his strength this time, but his hand might as well have been trapped in a steel vice for all the give he got from Alex’s single-handed grip. Alex could easily have pulverised the stocky lieutenant’s fingers and all his metacarpal bones, but released instead. Okay, he thought, perhaps you’ll be the one today.

‘Carry on, Lieutenant,’ he said, and listened to Lagudi’s overview of the various combat assignments he’d taken part in and his background in the Green Berets. Seemed Lagudi was the battering ram, the first man over the top. Good, thought Alex, a brave heart in that huge chest. I can use him.

Second Lieutenant Francis O’Riordan looked as Irish as they came, with his close-cropped startlingly orange hair and his pale skin. When he opened his mouth though, his accent was pure Bronx, every statement ending with a stab that made it sound like a question or a challenge. ‘Irish’ O’Riordan was from Special Forces Alpha, specialised in chemical engineering, and was proficient in explosive device construction, placement and disposal. The rumour was he could create a bomb from the contents of the average refrigerator.

Alex had read the man’s report. His previous Alpha team had been the best squad going – until they got blown to pieces. Irish had come home on a stretcher; the rest of his unit were spread over a hundred feet of steaming jungle. In the debrief, Irish had stated that Captain Dianne Chambers had ignored advice from her team and run them into hell – a claymore web: one way in, no way out. Follow-up psych sessions detailed a simmering anger against female authority, but also said O’Riordan was fit for duty. To date, he had continued to excel. Alex could see a mote of hostility in the man’s eyes now. Anger is okay; controlling it is the key, he thought. Time for a little push.

‘Where do you call home, Lieutenant O’Riordan? Riverdale, Throggs Neck?’ he asked.