“Well,” said Charles Bettencourt as he surveyed the chaos from the penthouse windows, arms crossed. “I really don’t see what else I can do here. Colonel, it’s been a pleasure.”
With a curt nod, the spry executive walked towards the sliding glass doors to the helicopter landing pad.
“Where do you think you’re going?” demanded Colonel Westmoreland, resting his bloody palm on a holstered pistol. “You are going to stay and defend this fucking position.”
“Am I?” shouted the CEO, waving Jonah’s pearlhandled pistol in the air. “Because I thought that’s what I’ve been paying you for.”
The colonel didn’t respond, and simply flicked the leather catch off his holster, ready to draw.
Without waiting, Charles thrust his pistol towards the colonel and fired three times. The mercenary grunted and stepped back as the bullets hit him in the unprotected abdomen just below his body armor, his customized pistol slipping from his slashed palm. Wobbling on his feet, the massive soldier slowly tipped forward like a felled tree, landing face-first on the ground with a bone-rattling crash. Blood flowed out of his stomach wound, collecting in the seams between the marble tiles.
“I think I’ll be leaving now,” said the CEO, throwing the now-empty 1911 to the ground.
“What about me?” asked the lawyer. “Take me to the helicopter, goddammit!”
“What about you?” mimicked the CEO as he walked towards the glass doors. “I don’t see a handicapped ramp.”
Colonel Westmoreland rose to his knees, animated by pure rage alone. The hulking man lurched forward towards his employer, blood gushing out of his belly unstaunched and dripping down to his crotch, teeth gritted in pain and fury, fists clenched and muscles bulging. He stood transfixed as Charles Bettencourt boarded the helicopter without so much as a wayward look back to his ruined island, his betrayed men.
Screaming, the lawyer pulled himself out of the chair, dragging two cast-encased legs behind him as he pulled himself up the stairs towards the landing pad. The blades of the executive helicopter spun faster, cutting through the air, until the entire vehicle lifted off the pad and soared through the air, away from Anconia Island for the last time.
The blood-soaked colonel fixed his pain-deadened, glazed-over eyes on Jonah and Hassan. He drew a knife out of the front of his chest armor and crawled towards them. Too beaten and exhausted to fight, Jonah grimaced and thrust his zip tied hands out in a desperate act of self-protection, all the while waiting for the mercenary’s knife to sink into his chest. He felt a fumbling on his zip ties, heard a snap, and the pressure around his wrists came free. Having cut him loose, Colonel Westmoreland turned his attention to the doctor to do the same.
Incredulous, Jonah and Hassan stared, rubbing their raw, bruised wrists as the colonel wobbled on his feet, face pale from blood loss. He collapsed forward onto his knees.
“Help me carry him to the elevator!” shouted Hassan.
“Give me a minute,” protested Jonah as he dragged himself to his feet. Picking up his pearl-handled pistol from the ground, he half-limped, half-crawled over to the mahogany desk. Jonah threw open the top drawer, pocketing a pair of Tibaldi fountain pens, a single Mont Blanc, and a Patek Philippe wristwatch.
“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Hassan.
“I’m stealing shit, goddammit!” Jonah shouted. “Just give me just one fucking minute!”
Grunting as he carried himself over to the nearest free-standing glass slab display, Jonah kick it free of the mountings. The display tilted over, slowly at first, but then picked up speed as it fell and shattered against the marble floor. Jonah leaned over and brushed the glass off an ornately tattooed yakuza skin, rolled up the human leather and tucked it under an armpit.
“Now we can go,” said Jonah. “These are worth a shitload on the black market.”
Jonah shoved himself underneath the mercenary’s other massive arm. Between the two of them, they managed to drag the colonel to the elevator. Westmoreland’s head lolled as he struggled to move his feet, to somehow assist with his own evacuation.
Jonah and Hassan collapsed, dropping Westmoreland to the elevator floor. The doctor stripped away the colonel’s shirt, revealing an ugly pattern of blood and bullet wounds, trying to find a place to apply pressure as Jonah punched the button for the lobby before slumping beside him.
“Don’t leave me here!” screamed the lawyer as the door slid shut.
“Is he going to make it?” asked Jonah, turning his attention to the colonel.
“The big man will outlive us all,” said Hassan, patting the man on the chest. The doctor then shook his head at Jonah — comforting words aside, the wounded soldier had little time.
“This island’s going to fall,” Westmoreland whispered with a wistful, far-away baritone. “You can hear the metal fatigue. It’s all snapping like so many twigs. Her spine is severed — nothing is holding her together.”
“If you don’t make it, do you have anybody we should talk to on your behalf?” asked Jonah, reaching underneath the mercenary’s shaved head with a hand to support his thick neck.
“Not anymore.” Blood dripped out of the corner of his mouth. “Any man worth seeing, I’ll meet again in the next few minutes.” The bleeding man coughed, his breath ragged and rattling. “Maybe I’ll see my wife,” he wheezed. “She was a good woman, so maybe not. It’s okay; I got women in the other place, too.”
“I can get him to the Scorpion,” offered Hassan, desperately trying to think of a solution. “My facilities there are rudimentary — but he might have a chance.”
“Don’t bother,” rasped the colonel. “This is as good a place to die as any.”
With that, his eyes rolled back into his massive head and his ragged breath grew short and stopped. Hassan rolled the mercenary’s eyelids shut as the elevator doors opened. Jonah and the doctor exited the elevator, leaving the inert body abandoned behind them.
The pair wove their way into the grassy courtyard, taking cover as the remaining few soldiers dashed across the field, trying to find some way off Anconia before it slipped beneath the waves. The island moaned a deep, pain-filled rumble. Driven into the fissure between the platforms, the superstructure of the SS Erno Rubik slipped from view, the behemoth slowly sinking into the ocean.
“We don’t have long,” said Jonah, surveying the destruction as an empty office building crumbled in a cloud of concrete, steel members and dust.
“What do we do?” asked the doctor as he shielded his face from the sudden blast of wind and debris.
Without a word, Jonah lead the way over to the edge of the island, a simple glass railing overlooking a three-hundred foot drop into the ocean below.
“We jump,” said Jonah. He swung both legs over the side of the railing, surveying the stomach-churning drop below. Hassan mirrored his movements, and the two men sat at the edge of the precipice.
“On three?” asked Hassan.
“Maybe next time,” said Jonah, pushing the doctor off the railing. The surgeon screamed, wheeling his arms and legs through the air as he fell, ending with a massive splash into the waves far below.