—20—
Four Jacks and a King
Joe Ledger stared at the two men in the front of the line. The big blond guy and the older black guy.
They were impossible faces.
Dead faces.
Ghost faces.
The ground seemed to tilt under Ledger’s feet and the light from the torches and lanterns got instantly brighter. So bright. Too bright.
He said, “What…?”
Very softly. So softly that only two people heard him.
Tom Imura and General Ike Black.
They turned to look at Ledger. The two men in the line gaped at him. The guards stood around, none of them realizing that something important was happening.
“What’s with you?” demanded Black sharply, and that caused everyone to turn in his direction — guards, prisoners, and even a few camp civilians who were passing by. The moment froze around Ledger.
Years ago, when Ledger had been recruited by the Department of Military Sciences one of the main reasons he had been chosen and asked to lead Echo Team was because he lacked the flaw of hesitation. He saw, processed and reacted with zero lag time, a side-effect of the Cop and Killer working in perfect harmony, blending astute judgment with instinctive reaction.
Now he stood rooted to the ground for what seemed like forever. He could feel his mind catching fire and for a moment — a single burning moment — Ledger wondered if the delicate balancing act of juggling personality aspects had all come crashing down. He knew that such a calamity was always possible, that control over his personal damage was in no way an absolute.
What made it worse was that he saw the realization blossom like diseased flowers in the eyes of those two prisoners. Top and Bunny were alive. They were prisoners. They were scheduled for execution at his hands. And although they were every bit as shocked as he was, he could see how they were reacting to his reaction.
All of this — the self-awareness, the understanding of his own deadly hesitation, the connection with Top and Bunny — happened in a microsecond. It felt so much longer, but it wasn’t. The Killer knew it wasn’t. The Cop knew it wasn’t. Ike Black’s words had just been spoken less than a heartbeat ago.
A heartbeat.
And that was how long his hesitation lasted.
Seemed like forever. Could have been.
Wasn’t.
Ledger turned away from the prisoners and smiled at Ike Black. “You know, Ike, something funny just occurred to me. You’ll think this is hilarious.”
The doubt on Black’s face wavered and he half-smiled. “Oh, yeah, what?”
Ledger stood next to him and pointed with his left to Top and Bunny. “See those two assholes over there?”
“What about them?”
Joe Ledger chopped the general across the windpipe with the edge of his left hand. He did it without a single muscular flicker that would have telegraphed the move. He did it the right way. And he did it very fucking fast.
There was a second moment of hesitation as Ike Black staggered a half step back. The guards stared. The passersby stared. The other prisoners stared.
Tom Imura did not. Nor did Top and Bunny.
They moved.
Tom pivoted in place, grabbed the closest guard and hit him with a cupped palm to the ear, putting a lot of torque into the blow, sending the man crashing into a second guard. Top and Bunny rushed at the nearest guards. Their hands were zip-tied but their feet were not, nor was the rest of them. Bunny ducked low and plowed his two-hundred and sixty pounds of hard muscle into a guard and hit with such locomotive speed that the man was plucked off the ground and carried with Bunny as the Marine rammed into the rest of the sentries. Top kicked the kneecap off the man closest to him, then pivoted and kicked a guard who — quicker than the others — was raising his rifle. The steel toe of Top’s boot caught him under the balls, crushing them and smashing the bottom bones of his pelvis. The gun fell and the man collapsed into a fetal ball.
Ledger tore the front of his shirt down to release the Wilson rapid-release knife and with a flick the short, wicked blade snapped into place. Without pausing, Ledger slashed it across the throat of one man and the eyes of another. Tom caught the second man, spun him and tore the rifle from the screaming man’s hands.
Ledger raced over to Top and Bunny, slashed the zip ties free, gave them a single dazzling, maniacal grin, and dove back into the fight. Ike Black was still on his feet, still trying to suck in air past the wreckage of his throat. Ledger slap-turned him and used him as a shield as he drove toward a pair of soldiers who had been part of the prisoner detail. The men saw their general and even though it was clear the man was badly hurt, he was still the god of their little world. They hesitated, and this time the hesitation was fatal, and Joe Ledger made them pay for it. He slammed Black into the arms of one, reached past the dying general to slash the forearm, the biceps and then the throat of the first guard. Then he grabbed the other man’s hair, jerked him free of Ike Black’s desperate clutches, and cut his throat, too.
Gunfire erupted behind him and he whirled to see Bunny and Tom fanning out, each of them firing as they ran. Top lingered with the prisoners and Ledger saw the flash of silver. Top had found a knife somewhere and was cutting the strongest-looking prisoners free; then he pressed his knife into a willing hand and let the newly freed prisoners continue the liberation. Ledger saw a guard running toward him and dove down beneath the spray of bullets, using a dead man for cover, feeling the bullets thud into dead flesh. He took the man’s Glock, rose up and fired, fired, fired.
There was a huge rumbling sound and Ledger whirled to see the cavern door descending.
“The cavern!” he bellowed, and raced toward the open maw of the cavern. The others followed, though Bunny peeled off toward a parked M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicle. Top fired as he ran and killed a man who stood at the door controls, then he punched a red STOP button. The door jerked to a halt four feet from the ground. Ledger and Tom ducked in after him.
Outside, a man saw Bunny coming, whirled and tried to get inside the ASV before the hulking giant could reach him. He was one step too slow. Bunny shot him center mass and from the loose way he fell it was clear the bullet had clipped the soldier’s spine. Then Bunny was inside the vehicle. Ledger was just crossing into the complex when he heard the bull roar of the vehicles muscular .50 machine gun. The mass of soldiers running toward the sound of battle suddenly started dancing and twitching as Bunny tore them to pieces.
Tom and Top Sims caught up with Ledger just inside.
“What’s the plan, Cap’n?” asked Top.
“Rules of engagement are pretty simple, Top,” said Ledger. “Everyone wearing a uniform is a bad guy and there are a lot of them. This is a target-rich environment. Let’s clean house.”
Top grinned. “Hooah.”
“Hooah.”
“It’s good to see you, brother,” said Top.
“You might be a figment of my imagination, Top, but for now I’ll take it. Rock and roll.”
They laughed, as if the world was a wonderful place. They laughed as if the odds were stacked in their favor and the night was not filled with gunfire and screams. They laughed because they were alive. For now, they were alive.
The four of them were badly outnumbered.
They were outgunned, even with the .50 machine gun and a full box of ammunition.
They were not outfought.
The men in Ike Black’s army were not soldiers. They thought they were predators.
They were not.