“Give me the gun in the back of your pants,” the tall man said, holding out his hand but eyeing the Berserker warily. “And put down the axe.”
They thought they had the drop on him, but still they were uncertain of themselves. Otherwise the tall man would have reached into Manus’s pants and taken the gun himself.
Manus took a step back to prevent them from surrounding him, and dangled the Berserker alongside his leg as though ambivalent about complying. “If you kill me, you get no more toys.”
The tall man’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile. It reminded Manus of some of the boys at the juvenile prison. “We’re not going to kill you. Only… have fun with you. Give us the gun.”
They were just a little farther away than ideal. Manus wanted one of them to step in closer.
“I’ll tell my people.”
The tall man laughed. “What man would ever tell of something like this? Even a woman wouldn’t tell.”
The man with the SIG was flushed and breathing heavily. He gestured with the muzzle toward the trunk. “Reach inside the trunk,” he said. “All the way in back.”
Manus merely looked at him.
The man’s face darkened. “I said, reach inside the trunk.”
Again, Manus said nothing. He knew the man wouldn’t just pull the trigger. He would look for one more way to threaten first.
The man pointed the muzzle at Manus’s face and stepped closer. “I said—”
Manus stepped in, swatted the SIG out of the way, and swung the Berserker underhand, arcing its five-inch razor-sharp head up into the man’s genitals. The blade sliced through cloth and flesh with equal ease, shattering the pubic bone and burying itself in the man’s sacrum with such force the impact carried the man’s feet off the ground. The man’s eyes bulged in shock and agony, but if he screamed, it wasn’t loud enough for Manus to hear.
Manus pivoted to his right, wrenched loose the Berserker as the first man crumbled to the ground, and swung it backhand toward the second man’s face. The man flinched and started to turn away, instinctively throwing a hand up for protection. The Berserker sheared off his fingers, blasted through teeth and jaw, and erupted from the left side of his head along with a geyser of blood. The man shuddered, took two spasmodic steps, and collapsed.
The tall man’s eyes were so wide it looked like they could pop out of his head. He took a step back and fumbled desperately at his waistband, presumably for a gun. Manus dropped the Berserker and instantly had the Force Pro pointed at the man’s head in a two-handed grip. The man’s arms froze where they were.
“Raise your hands,” Manus said. The man didn’t move, and Manus said, “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. But don’t make me tell you again.”
Slowly, warily, the man raised his hands. Manus could see he was breathing rapidly.
“Now face away from me and lace your fingers tightly behind your neck.”
The man complied.
Manus tugged one of his sleeves past his fingers, stepped forward, pulled free the man’s gun, using the sleeve to ensure he didn’t touch it, and stepped back again. He tossed the gun away, adjusted his sleeve, and retrieved the Berserker. “Now reach inside the trunk. The way you wanted me to.”
The man turned to him. “What? No.”
Manus pointed the Force Pro at his face. “Your choice.”
The man grimaced, his respiration terror-fast now. He glanced at his comrades. The first one was fetaled up and shaking — maybe crying, Manus couldn’t be sure. The second was lying still. The ground around them was saturated with blood.
Trembling now, the man approached the car. He leaned into the trunk. Manus knew that unless the man could instantly figure out how to load one of the grenade launchers, there was nothing inside he could use as a weapon. Still, he hadn’t searched the man for a knife or backup pistol, so for the moment, he maintained some distance.
“Reach further inside,” Manus said. “And spread your legs.”
The man complied. Manus had the sense the man was talking now, probably begging, but of course he couldn’t know and anyway it didn’t matter. Manus switched the Force Pro to his left hand and the Berserker to his right. He paused for an instant to watch the man, then raised his arm, swiveled his hips, and blasted the blade down directly into the man’s spine. The edge cleaved vertebrae and spinal cord and would have blown right through the man’s abdomen had Manus not pulled back at the last instant. The man’s body collapsed, his legs spasmed, and his scream echoed inside the trunk loudly enough that Manus could just hear it.
Manus grabbed the back of the man’s waistband, hauled him out of the trunk, and dumped him on the ground. The man flopped on his back like a fish on the deck, his hands groping at the gaping wound, his legs motionless. He was saying something, but Manus couldn’t read his lips — either the man had reverted to Turkish, or in his terror and agony he was no longer able to form words clearly enough for Manus to make out.
“You want to know why I talk funny?” Manus said. He scanned the area quickly for danger, saw none, and returned his gaze to the man. “It’s because I can’t hear anything. Even screams.” He raised a leg and smashed his foot down into the man’s throat, obliterating his trachea.
He walked over to the first man, who was the only one who might still be a threat. But no, he was still fetaled up and shuddering. Even if he had been carrying a weapon, he was obviously too overcome by his injuries to do anything with it. Manus stomped the man’s neck into the dirt.
He went over to the second man, who was lying still. Manus saw brains amid the blood and knew there was no need to do anything further. He wiped the blade of the Berserker on the man’s shirt, then set it down on the passenger seat of his car.
He paused for a moment, watching the van. He doubted there was anyone inside, but better to be sure. He circled quickly, the Force Pro in a two-handed grip, darting in and out for a peek through the passenger-side window, then the windshield, then the driver-side window. He saw nothing.
He gripped the side-door handle through the tail of his shirt, threw it open, and leaped to the right, ready to lay down fire if he needed to. But again, there was nothing.
No, not nothing. There was someone inside, curled up on the floor. Manus blinked, checked his surroundings, and looked again. He saw a frilly dress, a pair of hairy arms emerging from its sleeves, a glint of metal — handcuffs, the wrists secured behind the back.
He moved in, the Force Pro up, scanning the interior of the van. There was nothing else. Just a man, a small man, handcuffed, in a dress. The man seemed to be shivering.
Keeping the Force Pro just below his chin with his right hand, Manus reached out with his left and shook the man’s leg. The man flinched, but that was all. Maybe he said something or made some sound, but Manus couldn’t know.
Manus shook him again, harder this time. The man brought his shoulders up as though in anticipation of a blow and looked back over his shoulder. It took Manus a moment because the man’s face was so damaged — the eyes bruised and puffed, nearly closed; the lips swollen and split. There were cigarette burns on his cheeks and all along his arms and shoulders.
It was Hamilton.
Manus was so stunned that for nearly a second he forgot to check his surroundings. Then instinct honed by experience kicked in, and he did a quick sweep of the area. Nothing. When he came back to Hamilton, he saw the man was saying, “Please. Please help me. Please.”
Manus tried to process it. What had happened? He’d seen the news reports, the video, of Hamilton being held in Syria by some ISIS splinter group, and had assumed the director had used the Turks as a cutout to deliver Hamilton. Well, that seemed to have been the plan, anyway. But what had happened instead? Had the Turks made their own video, hiring an Arabic speaker for the role of knife-wielding terrorist? Had they delivered someone else to the Syrian group? If so, who? And why? Maybe to keep the man so they could use him until they grew bored, then resell him?