Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

For an instant, Sapir looked outraged. His remaining eye glared at McKenna. Then the life went out of him and his body dropped in an ungainly sprawl of limbs, so much dead meat.

Even before Traeger’s aide hit the floor, McKenna was moving. In one smooth motion he dropped the tranq gun and drew a pistol, which he pressed to Traeger’s temple as he hauled the CIA man to his feet by the collar of his jacket.

Rory smiled at Traeger. “Told you,” he said brightly.

Traeger looked as if he would have cheerfully strangled the life out of the boy there and then. Instead, he gawked at McKenna, as if unable to believe the sheer insolence of the man.

“You out of your mind?” he exclaimed, spittle flying from his lips. “We literally have you surrounded.”

“That’s why you’re coming with me,” said McKenna mildly. “I just want the kid, nobody has to die.”

“Umm, Dad?” said Rory, ever the pragmatist, and pointed at Sapir’s corpse.

McKenna shrugged. “I mean… y’know… from here forward. Now let’s go out there and tell your men to put their guns down.”

He shifted his grip from the front of Traeger’s collar to the back, and shoved the agent toward the hatch. They exited the ship and started down the ramp. The area directly in front of them was populated by armed mercs, all on high alert. Traeger cleared his throat and the majority of the mercs turned. It took a moment, but suddenly guns were coming up, all pointing in their direction.

Pressing close in against Traeger’s back, McKenna hissed in his ear, “Tell ’em.”

Traeger raised his voice. “If Captain McKenna doesn’t lower his weapon in the next ten seconds, shoot the kid’s knees out.” He twisted his head back to regard McKenna, curling his lip. “That work for you?”

McKenna jerked his head at Rory, who moved to stand behind his father, pressing himself against McKenna’s back as tightly as McKenna was pressed against Traeger. To McKenna’s dismay, however, he saw the mercs fanning out around them, and he knew that if he wanted to absolutely guarantee his boy’s safety, their only option was to withdraw to the dubious sanctuary of the Predator’s ship.

In truth, he’d misjudged Traeger’s reaction, and that irked him. He’d potentially bet his life—and worse, Rory’s—on the fact that Traeger, with a gun at his head, would turn out to be a coward. But the CIA agent had displayed a reckless bravery that had surprised McKenna.

“Fuck you!” he snarled into Traeger’s ear, trying to reestablish the upper hand. “My guys have this place covered from every angle.”

But even now, Traeger refused to be cowed.

“Funny story,” he said dismissively, “I don’t care. Ten… nine… eight…”

McKenna took another look at the mercs surrounding them, and thought: Shit.

Armed with a long rifle, Lynch was crouching close to where McKenna had crouched before him, looking down on the crash site below. His vantage point, though, wasn’t quite as good as McKenna’s had been. He had only a partial view of the site from here. He couldn’t see what was going on over by the alien ship, mostly obscured as it was by an overhang of rock and a drooping sprawl of decimated trees. Propped against a bush in front of his face, his radio hissed and crackled, but remained annoyingly silent for now.

Never a patient man, Lynch twitched and fidgeted, glaring at the radio as though it was a toddler that stubbornly refused to eat its greens.

Come the fuck on , he thought. Just give the fuckin’ word.

From the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of light. Fireflies?

He glanced to his right—and saw a trio of red dots dancing on his trigger arm. Red fireflies?

Then realization crashed in on him. Shit! He was being targeted! The sniper was being sniped! He scrambled upright, spun round, raising his gun.

Before he could take offensive or defensive action of any kind, a lightning bolt shot down from the heavens and hit him dead center. He was lifted into the air, as if by a giant hand made of sizzling light and excruciating pain, and smashed back down again. His ears hissing, his thoughts screaming, his body full of fire, he looked wildly around, and noticed something very odd indeed—his own arm, lying on the ground, fingers still twitching at one end, smoke rising from the other. Wondering if he was dreaming, or hallucinating, he turned to look at the place where his arm should be, and saw nothing but a charred stump, drooling blood.

I’m dead , he thought, and felt a kind of wonder. I’m actually dead. Aww, shit. Now I’ll never get to find out how this ends.

Above him, in front of him, he heard the crashing of undergrowth, the sound of something big heading his way.

Scrabbling in his pack, he pulled out a flare gun and fired it blindly into the air… illuminating a huge, dreadlocked shape, which pushed its way out of the trees and loomed over him like the Angel of Death.

Still calm, still counting down, Traeger said, “Three… two…”

McKenna wondered whether to shoot him in the head before he reached one, just for the hell of it.

Then a flare lit the sky above the jungle somewhere to the east, and was followed almost instantly by the hideous, drawn-out scream of someone or something dying a horrible death.

McKenna thought instantly of the Loonies, and Casey. They were out there. He hoped to God—

The momentary distraction was all that Traeger needed.

Spinning round, he made his hand flat and rigid as a blade, and stabbed it toward McKenna’s throat, intending to jab him right in the Adam’s apple. McKenna flinched away just in time, and Traeger’s hand scraped painfully against the side of his neck. It was still enough, though, to enable the CIA agent to break free of McKenna’s grip when the Army Ranger stumbled backward. As Traeger leaped from the ramp of the ship, hit the ground and rolled, the world suddenly erupted with gunfire.

We’re dead , McKenna thought, assuming that without Traeger there as a shield, the mercs had opened up on them. He threw himself backward, his only instinct being to protect Rory—with his own dead and twitching body, if need be.

It took him maybe a second to realize that the bullets weren’t coming their way. No, they were coming from the jungle, from the Loonies, God bless ’em, raining in on all sides, with the mercs as their target. And the mercs—those that weren’t cut down in the first volley—were scattering, running for cover, returning fire when they could. McKenna had been in firefights before, and knew he had to think and act fast, that he’d have only a few seconds before someone once again identified him and Rory as targets.

Rory was lying on the ramp, curled into a ball, his hands pressed over his ears. Crouching beside him, veiled by smoke, McKenna scooped him up, carried him to the edge of the ramp—Rory’s body rigid, as if made of wood—and dropped to the ground. Blanketed by the haze, the two of them then rolled beneath the ramp and lay there a moment, recovering. McKenna could hear his son’s heart hammering in his chest, and he held him close, murmuring words of comfort and encouragement. Eventually, he felt Rory’s body relax, saw him crack open an eyelid. The ground was littered with the corpses of Traeger’s mercenaries, and McKenna told his son not to look.

“Are you okay?” he said quietly.

Rory was clearly petrified, but he nodded. From his pocket, McKenna produced the invisibility ball, polished it briefly on his thigh, and offered it to Rory.

“Take this. You need to vanish, you really vanish. Understand?”