David Leadbeater
Blood Vengeance
For my family.
CHAPTER ONE
“They call me depraved and deceitful, the most dangerous man in the world. But I’m just a man. I live and breathe and bleed just like they do. They call me inhuman, but I was born in blood, in battle. What do they expect? I am the Blood King. I am the nightmare made flesh, the terrorist they really should be scared of. And I…”
Dmitry Kovalenko stared through the bars of his cell, speaking to the stale air, to the heavy silence that marked the passage of time.
“… I am coming. Right into your homes.”
The message fell on deaf ears. The cells around him were empty, the guards occupied elsewhere. The maximum security prison, a research facility according to the sparse signage scattered around the lonely desert approach, sat baking in the Nevada heat. In the ancient silence of Death Valley there was no one to hear a prisoner scream.
Kovalenko waited. The appointed hour was almost here. Finally. The last few months of incarceration had passed quickly for him, so caught up was he in the formulation of his greatest plan. Countless hours had passed whilst he studied the filthy ceiling, tracking the nightly movements of spiders and other bugs, fine-tuning ideas that he would then run past his new trusted lieutenants, Mordant and Gabriel. They were his now. Loyal to a fault and deadlier than VX gas, in a perverse way Kovalenko was glad to have been incarcerated with them. It was only with their terrible, invaluable help that he would see his violent, outrageous plan brought to fruition.
No good deed goes unpunished. His thoughts turned briefly to other matters, to the smug team that had put him in here and their various key figures. They would all experience the deepest devastation before the coming week was out.
The distant sounds and movements started as they always did when the guards prepared to release a group of prisoners from their cells to get breakfast. The guards worked their routines efficiently and carefully, but, by necessity, the schedule never varied. The Blood King shuffled forward, hampered by ankle chains, holding the gaze of every guard he passed, as he always did, demonstrating the unbending iron will of a man who was prepared to blow up the entire world just to get his way if he had to.
Quickly, the short line of prisoners passed along the cell block and down a ramp. A group of men, the first bunch, were just finishing up. Kovalenko saw Mordant, the big, well-muscled albino, and Gabriel, the powerful, wiry African, among them, and knew the time was at hand.
And, although he had never seen the outside of this prison, he knew exactly what would be happening up there.
It didn’t take many capable and determined men to organize the kind of assault designed to throw a previously undisturbed facility into total chaos. Around two dozen soldiers would be operating up top, some choppered in from the surrounding desert, others driving tourist SUVs from nearby Las Vegas by way of Pahrump. They would be pounding the fences, striking what they could reach of the main facility and its communications room. And the guards would react, some leaving the mess hall as orders were barked at them by their superiors…
Never realizing that the real attack was about to strike like a hammer blow from within.
Mordant and Gabriel rose fast, emanating such a sense of terror they might have been rampaging demons, and took hold of the nearest guard. These two men were truly frightening, they were ex-Special Forces soldiers from an insanely proficient covert unit, mercenaries from hell, men who got into it for the battle and the bloodshed and never looked back. They could have dispatched the guard in less than a second, but instead took their time, holding him and making him scream so that every guard in the room focused on them.
Weapons swung around.
The sudden sound of gunfire caromed off the walls, lead slugs zinging and crisscrossing paths. Kovalenko didn’t flinch. Instead, he watched the guards themselves convulse, targeted by one of their own. The single man he had been able to buy.
Dom Sullivan’s face twitched manically as he aimed and fired his weapon. His new friends ‘up top’ had carefully introduced him to the finest things that wealth and privilege had to offer these past few months after understanding early that an escape could not be properly facilitated without the help of a guard. Now he proved just how far he would go to partake of his nefarious dreams, shattering apart the men he worked with. The ones he couldn’t take down — the guards protected by their wall-mounted bulletproof cages — he left for the time being, to be dealt with momentarily.
Kovalenko watched as Sullivan crossed over to a control panel, input a code, and released all the other prisoners. The riot would start down here, the prison to be left under the control of the inmates. It was all just a smoke screen though, every act facilitating and masking the escape of the Blood King.
Mordant was at his side, but Kovalenko didn’t acknowledge him at first, he was too interested in watching the guards hidden behind their cages get their just desserts. Never again would they stare hatefully into his eyes. Some of the inmates used a mixture of detergent and chemicals found in a key-coded cleaning cupboard, which Sullivan had unlocked, to start a small localized fire underneath the cages. The Blood King settled back to watch. It would take some time, but the guards would either have to come out to face the prisoners or die of smoke inhalation if they weren’t rescued. Kovalenko saw every one of them scream into their radio headsets.
It reminded him of Mordant’s presence. “Time to go?”
Mordant’s deep voice was emotionless. “It’s now or never.”
“Lead the way.”
Kovalenko followed the bald albino across the mess hall and into a small square unadorned room, one of many on the lower floor of this facility. Behind a gray metal door at one end stood the familiar oblong glass panel signifying a lift shaft entrance.
Kovalenko frowned. “Is this right?”
Gabriel spoke from behind, guttural tones practically making the air cringe around him. “It’s smoke and mirrors. Dey’ll see you on camera.” The African loped forward like a puma chasing a gazelle, pressed a button to open the doors, and deposited a churning bowl of liquid inside. “Confusion is our friend.”
“The battle up top should be raging by now.” Mordant swung Kovalenko toward another door. “Let’s go.”
His voice was intentionally loud, signaling all those who had been chosen to escape. Sullivan joined them, along with half a dozen inmates who had agreed to offer themselves as cover just for the chance of breaking free. It was almost certainly the only chance they would ever get.
Mordant waited for Sullivan to input the code, then threw open the door and raced up the concrete steps. In addition to the code, two guards’ thumbprints would be needed to exit at the top level, so Gabriel had thoughtfully brought along the severed appendage of one of Sullivan’s colleagues. The stream of men leaped upward two steps at a time, heads down, expecting no resistance and getting none. Bare peeling walls passed them by. The dizzying turnaround at every mini-level made Kovalenko feel light-headed by the time they reached the final platform.
Before them stood the exit door.
Sullivan immediately stepped forward, holding his weapon low, and input the code, finishing by pressing his thumb to the small scanner lock. Gabriel followed suit and every man held their breath and then sighed as the little security device flashed red.
“Can’t have initiated lockdown yet,” Mordant said confidently. “It takes warden approval and he’s back home, all in pieces. These clowns are still sittin’ with their thumbs up their asses, waiting for him to get in. Try it again.”