Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (29 page)

America had shaped the global economy through Bretton-Woods, the
conference that laid the framework for the modern monetary system,
which was then backstopped by the IMF and World Bank after World War
II. The Westphalian system, which moderates international politics
and how states interact with one another, was created by dozens of
envoys, ambassadors, and politicians after the Thirty Years' War in
Europe in 1648.

Other great powers like Russia, China, and Iran had no say in
the establishment of Bretton Woods or the Westphalian system, both of
which led to a Western-dominated world. But Will was a pragmatist.
Say what you will about the decadence of the Western world, if the
globe were to come to be dominated by the likes of Russia or China,
it would not be a very nice place to live. With Russia or China as a
global superpower, the world would become less democratic, have less
respect for human rights, and leave little room for individual
creativity, initiative, or innovation. These were autocratic regimes
whose main driving interest was regime preservation
.
Self-perpetuation, almost as if the state itself was a living
organism. Perhaps it was.

Stepping outside into the warm Tampa air, Will wondered where the
world would stand tomorrow.

* * *

The plan was simple: chaos and terror.

Many of the Chinese in Oculus has been recruited out of the MSS
intelligence service or military units like Sea Dragon, Snow Leopard,
Arrow, and Night Tiger. However, the newly arrived Chinese operatives
were assigned to a special project that was a part of a larger effort
at weapons modernization called
shashoujian
or Assassin's
Mace. More accurately, they
were
a program within Assassin's
Mace.

The four operatives had crossed frozen arctic terrain faster than
the most talented and experienced mountaineer could have, with very
little equipment to help them on their way. It would have been a
suicide mission; anyone else would have frozen to death within a few
kilometers. But this was not the case for Jiahao and his men.

Jiahao holstered his pistol and looked to his three men.

“Shun.”

The Chinese operative stepped forward, ready to follow his
commander’s orders.

“Now that it is dark, I want you to follow the ski trails back.
The enemy has no doubt followed them and even now plots an ambush. I
want you to teach them a lesson that they will not soon forget.”

“Consider it done,” Shun answered. Unslinging his
Tavor assault rifle, he handed it off to one of his teammates. “This
will just slow me down.”

With only a pistol, knife, and snowshoes, Shun ran into the
darkness and disappeared.

Jiahao smiled. He would have gone himself, but as the new leader,
he had to spend the night in preparations, ensuring that the men were
ready for the next day’s movements. In the meantime, Shun would
strike terror into the hearts of the Kazakhs and their American
puppeteers. Soon, they would get a taste of what Assassin’s Mace
was capable of.

* * *

Wind howled through Samruk International’s patrol base,
extinguishing the small fire that had been lit to melt snow for
drinking water.

Pat held his Kalashnikov close, attempting to stay warm while on
guard duty. The JTF2 operators had done an excellent job finding a
depression in the ground that offered them some cover from the wind
sweeping across the tundra, but there was only so much that could be
done with temperatures easily reaching -30 degrees. In the low
ground, the mercenaries dug out their crow’s foot-shaped patrol
base and four-man snow shelters.

The former Delta Force operator balled up his fists and his toes,
attempting to keep them from freezing in the night.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes instinctively
turning toward something. Nothing was moving, everything was silent
apart from the arctic wind. Pat stepped forward. It wasn’t
something he saw, but something he heard, barely audible but
certainly there. He heard the sound again. Something falling? Pat
moved closer to the snow shelters, walking down to the far end of the
crow’s foot.

Snow being kicked. A body hitting the floor.

Pat ran straight toward it.

He burst into the snow shelter that he heard the sounds coming
from, his Kalashnikov leading the way. Flicking on his Petzl
headlamp, he scanned for threats.

The roof of the snow shelter had been collapsed toward the back
end. Bodies lay on the ground, Pat’s face twisting in a grimace as
his headlamp illuminated their wounds. Their joints were broken, arms
and legs twisted in unnatural directions. Faces were lumpy and blue,
like they had been worked over with a lead pipe. A shiver went up the
American’s spine.

Wolves?

No, impossible.

Pat felt it still in the shelter, right there with him. Then its
eyes opened. In overwhites, it blended right in with the sides of the
shelter. The former Delta operator went to bring his weapon into
play, but wasn’t even close. The rifle was slapped aside and then
torn right off of him, the sling propelling his head forward as he
lost control of the Kalashnikov. For a samurai, there were few
greater dishonors than to be disarmed by an opponent.

The rifle spun away into the snow and Pat found himself in a
fight for his life. Blows rained down on him as he backpedaled. As
someone who routinely boxed his entire Delta squadron for physical
training, it was the first time he had squared off with a martial
artist who was faster than he was. Fists, elbows, and knees came at
him faster than he could react.

Suddenly, he was picked off his feet and hurled skyward,
rocketing right through the roof of the snow shelter. In a burst of
ice, he was flung into the night and came down hard on the tundra.
Trying to shake off the shock to his system, Pat rolled over on his
back and struggled to his feet. His attacker shot straight up into
the air, jumping twice his height and landing in a crouch a few feet
away from Pat.

Now able to see his attacker, Pat understood that he was facing
off against one of the Chinese members of Oculus. His movements were
nothing short of supernatural. Settling into a boxer’s stance, he
prepared for the onslaught he knew was coming.

This time, he was ready, ducking and weaving away from fists and
open palm strikes. Pat took small steps to his right, then his left,
then back, narrowly avoiding the Chinese commando. He didn't dare
reach for any of the hand weapons he kept secreted on his body. The
moment he reached for a knife, garrote wire, or brass knuckles, he
knew the commando would launch another fusillade of strikes, taking
advantage of his momentary distraction.

A low kick striking Pat on his thigh caused him to buckle at the
knees. Continuing the movement, the attacker stomped on his booted
foot, pinning him in position. Keeping his hands up, Pat protected
his face, but his attacker’s fists had more power behind them than
anything he had ever experienced inside the ring or on the streets.
Tearing his foot free, Pat stumbled backwards, struggling to stay
upright.

In the blink of an eye, he saw the opening. The kung fu killer
attempted a roundhouse kick. In the nanosecond that he gave up his
back, Pat blitzed forward. His quick footwork closed the distance and
he landed a left and a heavy right on the Chinese commando’s skull.
This time, it was his opponent who stumbled. The man quickly
recovered before the former Delta operator could follow up his
assault.

“Impressive.”

The word was carried in the wind in perfect English.

“Not so bad yourself, Jackie Chan.”

Pat didn’t wait for a response but strode forward while
shooting out a punch far before before he closed the distance, it was
designed to distract rather than do damage. Then he launched his boot
up into the commando’s groin. The Chinese soldier smirked, easily
deflecting the attack. A counter-kick hit Pat in the mid-section,
opening him up for a fraction of a second.

Then the fists came down on the American in rapid succession. It
was a Wing Chun technique called
Do Lin Wan Kuen.
The chain
attack emphasized a series of short, rapid punches that brutalized
Pat’s rib cage. Ignoring the pain in his side, Pat punched, but his
attacker blocked, then chopped the American in the neck. Pat’s
vision went blurry. He felt like he had nearly lost his head.

Pat threw another punch, but the commando blocked it with his
elbow and executed a low kick. Pat felt something snap inside his
leg, causing him to limp backwards. The killer who had infiltrated
their patrol base was now stepping on the gas pedal to finish the
fight. His speed and power were trained—well trained—but also
supernatural.

Pat dodged another punch that flew over his head in a blur
of motion, but then took an overhand right to the side of the head
that spilled him to the ground. He fought the black walls closing in.
What little of the world he could see was spinning.

The Chinese assassin reached under his overwhites and
withdrew a dagger. Smiling, he reached down to begin carving his
turkey.

Two shots cut through the night. The assassin pancaked
himself into the snow as another shot passed over him and his victim.
Pat squirmed, his hand searching until it landed on the hilt of his
own knife, which he yanked free of its sheath.

Curses in Russian greeted his ear.

“Pat? Pat? What the hell happened?”

It was Korgan, their burly sergeant major now at his side.

“Where is he?” Pat croaked.

“I don’t know. Who was that?”

Pat rolled over and saw nothing but snow stretching out into the
darkness.

Chapter 28

“The boys are whispering about a ghost that snuck into
our patrol base last night,” Sergeant Major Korgan said as he skied
alongside Deckard.

“A fucking ghost didn’t gut four of our men and go Hong Kong
fooey on Pat.”

The former Delta operator was now strapped into a plastic
stretcher called a Skedco, which was being pulled through the snow by
four mercenaries. The bodies of the dead had been buried in the snow
for later retrieval.

Samruk had initiated their movement at dawn, handrailing the
enemy’s trail. The Canadian JTF2 counterterrorism operators were
leading the movement since they were the most fresh of the group, not
to mention the most experienced in the Canadian Arctic. Their warrant
officer had been correct about the enemy heading for the frozen
fjord.

The ski trail led right into it. Frozen over, the fjord acted as
a natural line of drift and a flat, high-speed trail for humans to
traverse.

“Who could have done something like that? Pat said he only saw
one man.”

“I don’t know,” Deckard said, shaking his head. “I’ve
seen Pat surrounded in a bar by unconscious bodies stacked around him
like cordwood. He’s an animal who could take any one of us apart in
hand-to-hand combat. Whoever did that to him….” His words trailed
off. “Shit, I just don’t know.”

“I fear that we may have awakened something,” the sergeant
major responded, the old superstitions from the steppes of Kazakhstan
still strong in the veteran soldier.

Deckard frowned.

“C’mon, let’s get the hell off this rock,” he said as he
skied out onto the frozen river. In a few more hours they would reach
the coast.

* * *

The Arctic fiber optic station looked abandoned and empty from a
distance, with a door open and swinging back and forth in the breeze.
Deckard had walked into one too many traps recently to take those
impressions at face value. It suddenly dawned on Deckard that they
were standing atop a frozen river, meaning that if they took indirect
fire, they would be in a real shit state with no cover and nowhere to
retreat to. Combat in general consists of a series of sub-optimal
decisions to make, but this was especially true in the high north.

“I don’t see their trawler,” Aghassi said as he looked
through a pair of binoculars.

“Oculus probably hijacked it and left, but they may have left
some party favors for us.”

“Drones, land mines, boobytraps, lasers, automated gun
systems—”

“OK, yeah, thanks. I got it.”

The former Task Force Orange operator scanned the one-story
building, looking for signs of life.

“Interesting that they left the communications mast standing.
The first thing I would have done is cripple the communications in
the building before escaping.”

“Maybe they are baiting us in.”

Aghassi lowered the binoculars and looked at Deckard. “Or maybe
someone wants to talk to you.”

The mage.

“All right, get gun positions up and set intersecting fields of
fire on the structure. Put the assault line a few hundred meters away
from the building and cheat a small element forward. No one goes
through the doors. Use windows or create another entry.”

“Hey, hold on, we’ve got something,” Aghassi said as he
looked through the binos again.

Sure enough, a lone figure had stepped out of the building and
was walking toward the Samruk International mercenaries with his
hands held high in the air. Rochenoire snatched up a squad of Kazakhs
and set up a hasty blocking position, with one PKM machine gun
pointed downrange, ready to rock and roll.

“Advance forward,” the former SEAL yelled at the lone
figure. As he got closer, they could see that it was a male, wearing
commercial cold-weather gear, and that he looked to be about 50
pounds overweight. Fit the bill for a civilian working at the Arctic
fiber optic cable station, but they had to be sure.

“My name is Toby Baker!” the civilian yelled out to the
mercenaries. “I’m an electrical engineer!”

“What the fuck ever,” the former SEAL shouted back. “Take
off your jacket and drop trou!”

“What?”