Steve Abbott: Devil's Gambit

Donovan was prepared when the sky above his head turned brilliant white. The Peninsula had done its job and created an umbra of shadow. He just had time to get a good grip on his flight-stick and collective controls before the shockwave ripped over them. The sudden increase of air pressure above them caused loss of lift in the rotor blades. The Hind plunged nose down towards the water. In the cargo compartment, any gear not secured shot to the ceiling. Donovan twisted his cyclic to full collective. Forward speed dropped rapidly as the blades fought to bite down and not forward. The cockpit filled with the din of warning buzzers and his control panel lit up like a Christmas tree as the engine struggled with all it had. Donovan remembered that Soviet engines had a terrible habit of failing just when you needed them the most. Gray green water filled his entire view. The roller coaster ride bottomed out ten feet from the ocean waves. The Hind pitched and swayed like a cork in a bathtub as turbulent eddies of air snaked around them, but it held its altitude.

Donovan keyed the intercom. “Everything okay back there?”

Sean groaned as he pushed kit bags off his legs and chest. Vomit spattered everything. “Still here, I think, or heaven is really into Soviet hardware.”

Yevgeny pulled himself painfully off the deck. He pointed an accusing finger at his fellow officer. “Vasilly, you were behind the good Captain with the turn of your key.”

Gayle nodded. “I thought the blast was too small.”

Sean looked at both of them like they were mad. “Too small? Too fucking small? You just vanished a city and you think the blast was too small.” He pulled himself back upright on his jump seat, his face sullen. “Bunch of fucking nutters, that’s what you are.”

In the cockpit, Donovan smiled to himself. The turbulence had died down as fast as it had been upon them. Behind them, the remains of Chanjon rained down on the coastline. Thank God he didn’t have to explain any of this to the powers above. For once, he was glad to be the support element.

Gayle found Addison by the Eisenhower’s stern. Sean had found himself a good vantage point to watch the brilliant sunset. Black water rushed by the hull thirty below them, the wake glowed with a soft phosphorescence behind them. Sean held a half drunken glass flask in his right hand. He acknowledged Gayle’s presence with another tip of the bottle.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sean pointed at the fire of gold and red in the sky. “And we made it.” He took another drink. “No, you made it, with the twist of a key.”

“You’re drunk.”

Sean shook his head. “Wish I was.”

“Gayle made to leave. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

“What?”

“Hunting you down like this. I guess each of you have different ways of doing things after a mission.”

Sean chuckled low and dark. “You’re kidding me right? He pointed at the still-vibrant sunset. “I’m fucked up over that. I couldn’t care less I slotted a few people. That’s just my job.” He felt the bulge of bandage round his right bicep. “Hell, it’s not like they didn’t have a go at me.” He offered her the bottle.

Gayle shook her head. “I don’t like Scotch.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Are you always such an asshole, Addison?”

Sean smiled round the lip of the flask. “Pretty much. Not that it’ll matter anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

He finished the flask with one last pull and tucked it into his pants. “I’ve got one last thing to take care of and then I’ll be leaving the regiment and the Army.”

“You? Retire? What could a man like you possibly do with yourself in retirement?”

“Oh, I’ll be all right. My mum and dad left me a fair chunk of cash when they died. I think I’ll go and see some of the world without a gun in my hand.”

“Well, I just came down here to thank you for everything you did. You and Harris.”

“No thanks required, Captain. We were on the clock.”

Andrew Verkatt was a bachelor as much by choice as by circumstance. Most women found him overbearing and repugnant. He cared little of what any woman thought. Money took care of untoward feelings they might have about his needs. He kept a regular routine of fashionable call girls in and out of his estate. The Korean affair had been a rushed and tiring job, involving his own personal hand in matters he normally left to skilled underlings. For the first time in quite a while he had to take charge at the ground level. As a reward, he had given himself the last three days as a rest cure, gearing himself up for what was to be a promising year of even greater wealth in the many new markets of the world now available to his country’s arms industry. It didn’t matter who ran the country. Money was, after all, more important than political power. Verkatt would outlast the current leader as he had so many others. As it was, tonight he lay restless and alone under expensive sheets. Something had dragged him from slumber, most likely one of those damn dogs. All was quiet now though. There was an almost silent cough in the hall outside his bedroom door, followed by a long sliding thud.

A galvanizing bolt of fear shot down his spine. The Koreans were covering their tracks, the double crossing bastards. He rolled off the bed, the 9mm Berretta he kept under his pillow just in case of such an emergency in his right hand. Using his bed as a shield from the door, he steadied his aim. The door burst in, kicked open. Verkatt loosed a volley of rounds through the opening into the hall beyond. Seconds crept by. Had he hit them? Were they dead or dying in the hall? Two dark cylinders arced through the shattered doorway into the center of the room. Verkatt watched the grenades land on his perfect Persian rug, four feet from his face. He was trying to scrabble back when his world disintegrated into terrible light, noise and pain.

Addison hauled the huddled, unconscious Verkatt off the carpet and onto the rumpled bed. The South African’s hands were secured behind his back with a plastic cable tie. He was dropped unceremoniously onto a chair beside the bed.

Sean slapped Verkatt around the face with slow deliberate strokes until he came to. Verkatt’s eyes snapped open and then widened as he realized his predicament, but he said nothing. Sean got another chair, pulled it in front of the bound man and sat down. When Sean spoke, his tone was mocking.

“Very disappointed in you, Andrew. A little bird tells me you have been up to all sorts of nasty doings. Things not in everyone’s best interest.” Sean sat back and opened his arms. “So, now you and I are going to have a little chat.” Sean’s voice went cold and flat, “and you are going to tell me everything about your little foray into business with the North Koreans.”

Verkatt had played this game before, from Sean’s side. His answer was equally cold and flat. “I don’t have the faintest idea of what you are talking about.”

The rifle butt of Sean’s silenced MP5-SD3 SMG came down quick as a snake on Verkatt’s left kneecap. Verkatt doubled over in pain. Sean pulled him back upright by his hair. He pressed his face close to the sweating South African’s. “Any other time, mate, I would be more than happy to spar with you. But right now, I don’t have the time or the patience.” He pushed Verkatt back hard in his chair. Verkatt sat there, glaring and defiant.

“I still don’t know what you are talking about.”