Vengeance Read online

  Nicolai sighed.

  Hench walked back outside then returned with a red hot iron.

  “Keep that away from me,” Nicolai said.

  “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?” Belkin said.

  Hench smirked. He slowly moved the hot iron toward Nicolai’s face. Nicolai turned away, so Hench quickly pressed the hot iron against his other cheek.

  Nicolai screamed and turned his head violently back and forth. This frustrated Hench, so he pressed the red hot iron against the back of Nicolai’s neck, which he couldn’t protect.

  Skin sizzled and smoked.

  Nicolai screamed.

  The screams were broadcast all over the base-wide intercom system.

  The smell of burnt flesh filled Hench’s nostrils, and he smiled.

  Hench was only getting started. He laid the hot iron across Nicolai’s back. Nicolai screamed in agony.

  “Me think you like!” Belkin screamed. He drew his gun and fired four shots into Nicolai’s back.

  Nicolai shook and then the light drained out of his eyes.

  Belkin said, “That’s what you get when you mess with me.” He gestured toward Hench Fowler. “I take vengeance on my enemies. You did me wrong by coming here.” He grabbed his own chin. “When you touch this flesh and bone, you put your life in mortal jeopardy. Cruelty is my kindness. Lawlessness is my law. He who seeks to do good dies a bad death. Nietzsche warned of the two opposing natures—serenity versus passion. Apollo versus Dionysus. I take it further because the Gods fell short. My ecstasy is to crush the peaceful nature, to destroy the do-gooder.” Belkin stalked back and forth across the room and circled the body. “You came here for justice, but you got my wrath. You came here that I would suffer for my deeds, but you suffered for yours. You lay there dead. I stand here pulsating in the throes of power! You’re next, Brandt. I owe you my rage, and I always repay in full.”

  ***

  The speaker system in the underground tunnels was fully functional, so Chuck heard the screams.

  He stopped hiking, stood in an underground corridor, and looked up at a speaker.

  The screaming was ended with four gunshots. Then a voice came over the speakers. The man went on a rant. Then he added, “Brandt, I know you’re out there. I know you’re somewhere in the base. We will find you, and we will kill you. You will die just like Nicolai died. Your time is running out. I’ve been waiting for this for too long. Now you killed my brother. Blood for blood. Nicolai is dead. You’re next. I’ll see you very soon.”

  The sound system went silent.

  Chuck kept going. He had a job to do, and he was motivated as never before.

  CHAPTER 24

  Chuck walked down a long cement corridor with forty-foot high arched ceilings. In some areas, old rusted rebars protruded out of the ceiling. Motorcycles were thrown against the walls where they lay on the ground. They looked like they’d been thrown aside as trash. But Chuck noticed that many of them were almost brand new.

  He passed military trucks, but they weren’t all old ruins from the Cold War. Five of them were new trucks. He walked past a new limousine. The idea of a limo in this remote wild location was absurd. The road to get here was a seventy mile dirt road that nobody used because it was gated off.

  Then he passed the car pool and walked a hundred yards down the tunnel. Full-size cargo containers lined the walls on both sides. Chuck opened several. Human smugglers often kept trafficking victims in shipping containers, so Chuck had to make sure no sailors—or their bodies—were locked in these. He was astounded by what he found—copper bars, copper pipes, plastic pipes, computers and computer parts, smart phones, appliances, widescreen televisions, crates full of beer and wine, chocolate, engine parts, chemicals, Persian carpets, vats of grease, bicycles, and golfing equipment. All of this cargo was in perfect condition. It was millions of dollars worth brand new merchandise. A number of refrigerated containers contained frozen food, including Alaskan salmon and halibut.

  He thought of the sailors. He had to find them. He recalled what he read about Marcus Irwin, a single father of five kids. His wife had passed away last year. If Marcus was dead, his kids were now orphans. Another sailor was Joe Berg of St. Louis. His wife Talia told crisis counselors that Joe called her every day. Three days ago she learned she was pregnant. Chuck wondered if she’d never see her husband again.

  Then Chuck heard a clanking sound. He stepped behind a cargo container for cover. Within a minute he heard footsteps. It sounded like two men, but he didn’t look. Instead, he waited. The footsteps were getting closer.

  Twenty seconds.

  CHAPTER 25

  As his targets stepped into the contact zone, Chuck leaned out but his rifle strap snagged on a tie-down hook on the trailer bed. That cost him a second. He nailed the lead gunman, but the second one dodged left and came at him firing. Chuck was forced to duck down. He scrambled under the trailer and swung his rifle like a baseball bat, hammering the second gunman in the knees. That brought him down.

  Chuck scrambled out and dove on top of him, but the killer used Chuck’s own momentum against him, throwing Chuck over onto his back and coming out on top. The killer started whaling on Chuck with his fists, hammering his face like a man possessed. Then he grabbed Chuck’s throat and throttled him, trying to choke the life out of him.

  Chuck forced his left hand over his arm and grabbed the attacker’s collar. Then Chuck brought his right hand over his arm to join his left hand and began to choke him. Somehow the attacker broke free of the hold, but Chuck still had a grip on his collar with his left hand. With his right hand, Chuck punched the attacker in the windpipe. The attacker fell to the side, and gasping for air crawled for his assault rifle.

  “Don’t try it,” Chuck said. “Stop right there.”

  As the killer grabbed his AK47 and swung it around, Chuck drew his Glock and fired off two shots.

  “You should have listened. You shouldn’t have killed all those sailors, either, and thrown them in the ship’s freezer. Maybe get a real job. Ever think of that? Be an accountant. But no. You want to shoot innocent people and throw their bodies in the freezer. You should treat people better than that.”

  Chuck slung his M16 over his shoulder and picked up his compound bow.

  CHAPTER 26

  Chuck moved on down the cross tunnel and arrived at an underground airplane hangar. Overhead lights shined down from the ceiling of the rounded thirty-foot high cement roof. A dozen abandoned bomber jets lined the left side of the hangar. They looked old, but Chuck knew little about jets. The cockpit windows were covered with canvas tarps. Bombs were still loaded under the wings. His main concern was that there were a lot of shadows and blind spots interspaced between the jets. He walked slowly, always looking for the best place to take cover if someone jumped out and opened fire on him. After every plane, he kneeled down and looked ahead for legs or any sign of shooters. Near the end of the line, he took cover behind an old metal crate. He was about to move on, but instead, he removed the lid to the crate. It was full of old red army uniforms and flags. Most of the flags were the old bright red sickle and hammer flags; the others were also red, but in the center was a big image of Lenin. He had the bald head, the mustache, the goatee, and the cold eyes. These flags were vintage relics from the past and would fetch a high price in parts of California. Holding his M16 ready for action, Chuck moved on.

  The jet elevator was actually still functional. Chuck hit the lever, and the platform rose a few feet before he stopped. He never liked elevators.

  He walked over to a metal ladder that led up to daylight. He shook the ladder. It felt solid, so he climbed slowly, emerging in yet another airplane hangar. It was evidently being used as a garage for trucks, and daylight shined through the cracks between the big doors.

  There was nobody around, but a little marmot was crouching in the corner watching Chuck with alarm. He whistled and bolted down a hole.

  Then Chuck heard the roar of an engine and the s
creech of brakes outside the hangar door. He took cover behind one of the military troop trucks that was parked in there. The doors were pulled open by two gunmen.

  CHAPTER 27

  The gunmen pulled the truck into the hangar and stood around talking in Russian. Chuck didn’t have time wait around while his friends were being tortured and shot, so he stepped out from behind the truck.

  In Russian he said, “American world police. Get down on your knees, hands in the air.”

  For just a moment, the men looked at him in surprise. Then they scrambled for their weapons.

  Chuck raised his compound bow and let the first arrow fly, dropping the first killer. The second one got to is AK, but no sooner had he laid his fingers on the steel when a swatting sound announced that the second arrow had flown. As he swung around with the AK47, the arrow took him in the chest.

  “Stick to the listening plan,” Chuck said. “More listening, less shooting.”

  At the door, he took in the sights. A massive abandoned Soviet airbase stretched out at the base of one of Kamchatka’s many volcanoes. The volcano was a barren cone, smoking high above at the caldera.

  Chuck glassed the area with his binoculars. The airbase consisted of a runway flanked by an abandoned town. There were many buildings, some as much as four stories, but most only one or two stories high. What appeared to be dozens of identical barracks were spread out. Because the base was long abandoned, it was also overgrown. Trees and foliage were thriving.

  Although weeds had grown up in the streets, the paved roads still looked functional, and Chuck could see from the smashed down weeds and bushes that the roads had been in recent use.

  Off to his left, he saw several rusted-out tractors. Beyond those, two dated cargo planes rested peacefully among the fir trees, which had grown up around them over the past decades. Bushes thrived beneath their wings and metal carcasses.

  Because of the return of nature, it wasn’t your typical urban setting. The base was abandoned, but then again, not anymore. Belkin and his three dozen killers could be anywhere. The same went for the missing sailors. Chuck had to find them and get them out of here alive. He had been given a mission with an extremely high chance of failure. Clearly, this mission was meant to fail. They’d lied to him about the ship and crew and sent him into the teeth of impossible odds. If they really wanted to save a dozen men from a small army, they’d probably have sent in the Navy SEALs. Instead, they wanted to check off a box and say that they’d tried. They’d sent in a legendary operative. If he couldn’t succeed, they’d say, nobody could. They were trying to hide something and bury Chuck and the sailors along with some dark secret.

  Chuck sprinted to a two story barracks building that was a hundred yards from the airplane hangar. Basically, he didn’t know what he was up against. Were they prepared for a hostile strike force like the one he and Frank Murdock used to run? Or were they prepared for urban warfare in the remote stretches of Kamchatka where the bear roamed and the eagle flew? If so, Chuck’s masters should have sent in a platoon of Marines. Urban warfare was brutal, but a platoon of Marines could take on all comers.

  On the other hand, a small army of killers could wage war against platoons of attack forces. They would be hard-pressed to wage war against a ghost, however, and that’s what they would be facing in Chuck Brandt.

  Appearances told a grim tale of a doomed man and a doomed mission, but Chuck did not live by appearances. There was no percentage in that. He lived and breathed by the twin guides of instinct and probability theory. He had to gain an edge over his adversaries. He had to operate with a good chance to win every single bet—and he’d have to lay down a lot of winning hands to come out of this alive.

  The idea of a smaller force winning over a larger force was not encouraged by the history of warfare. Probability usually doomed the weak. A man had to know his own strengths and the weaknesses of his enemy. He had to know the strengths of a lean, mobile attack force versus a rigidly-controlled larger force. Excellent field generals were a rare breed, but numbers could be daunting for many reasons.

  The Greek historian Herodotus spoke of how the inferior Scythians managed to defeat the powerful Persian warrior-king Darius in 512 B.C. They were guerilla fighters and ghosts. Herodotus wrote, “…they make it impossible for the enemy who invades them to escape destruction, while they themselves are entirely out of his reach unless it pleased them to engage with him.” According to Herodotus, the numerically- and technically-inferior barbarian army forced Darius to retreat in shame. They even attacked his rearguard and captured his baggage train as his army retreated.

  Chuck had long considered the lessons of history, but urban warfare was ugly. All warfare was unfortunate, but someone had to risk their neck when evil men ran rampant.

  Making a blind approach on his chosen entry-point, he climbed a small tree without hesitation and entered the first barracks through the second floor window on the theory that Belkin might have booby-trapped the first-floor doors to every building. Once inside, he moved from room to room as fast as possible, knowing that if he delayed, any defenders would have a chance to counterattack.

  He took an aggressive stance and led with the suppressed barrel of his M16.

  Within a few minutes he’d cleared the house. There were neither defenders nor hostages. The front door was not wired. Chuck cracked it open and looked down the street at a dozen more barracks. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  In street fighting, occupying forces had all the advantages. They had cover. They had time to plan ambushes. They could plant sentries, create confusion, lay booby traps, fortify buildings, and stockpile ammunition.

  This was ugly. Chuck had to smile. He emptied the food out of his knapsack to lighten his load. He cast off an extra jacket and shoes.

  Over the next half hour, he cleared most of the barracks on that street. Then it happened.

  CHAPTER 28

  Belkin came down the cement steps into the courtyard behind the old Soviet command building. It was a sunken courtyard at the base of a concrete staircase. He stood between several concrete pillars that held up what looked like a mini train trestle of wooden beams. In fact all the beams were just for aesthetics. They’d been built by the Soviets with borrowed money before the fall of communism. It was a favorite courtyard of the men, who loved to drink whisky here, but today it was all business.

  Belkin stopped and glared at a small group of his men, who stood side-by-side. He scratched his horseshoe mustache with big fleshy fingers. His long, scraggly black hair blew across his pale, obese face. A fresh application of black eye liner and eye shadow contrasted with his milky gray eyes—piercing little eyes that were as cold as Siberian winter. The men stood in rigid formation with severe expressions on their faces. They sensed the malevolence that was seething from Belkin, and they knew that at times like this the slightest mess up could bring down all hell on their miserable little lives.

  Agata “Automatic” Yazov came down the stairs and stood next to Belkin. Agata was a dead ringer for Lenin, but he was called “automatic” because he was a madman when got his hands on an automatic weapon. Just yesterday, he’d let two prisoners make a run for it and mowed them down like field grass.

  Belkin looked at Agata. “Where are my troops?” he said, referring to the twenty men who’d gone to Petrapavlosk to supervise the transfer of cargo from a warehouse to a North Korean ship that was in port.

  “They’re on their way back,” Agata said. “They’ll be back here within the hour.”

  Belkin looked at the men in front of him with confidence. “That’s fine. We don’t need them. We’ve got you four. We’ve also got Red Team, but they won’t be needed, will they, Kurlev?”

  Raiden “Rottweiler” Kurlev was the capo. He had buzzed black hair and eyes like little obsidian olives. “Hell no. I’d rather you turned them back. We don’t need any help to kill Brandt.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Hopefully within th
e hour, but it’s a big base. There’s a lot of places to hide.”

  Belkin paced back and forth, his hands in the pockets of his black overcoat.

  “There may be others with him. We may be looking at a six-man team. It won’t be easy.” Belkin looked like a living corpse that had been hauled out of the grave. He glared at his men. Each of them carried a 7.62mm AK47 assault rifle and ammunition pouches. One of them wore camo skin oil on his face.

  Belkin said, “I’ve got a team in the underground base now. Brandt has already taken out several of our men.” He approached the man with the camo facial paint. He stood inches from his face looked into his eyes with a war face.

  “Yesterday, you killed two men,” Belkin said. “You didn’t hesitate. That is good, but they were unarmed. Now there are armed men on the loose. I expect you to kill them, too.”

  The man nodded rigidly.

  Belkin moved slowly down the line, looking into the eyes of his men, feeding off the fear he saw because he knew that it wasn’t Brandt who they feared.

  “If you fail, I will drag you to death behind a truck. You’ve seen it happen. You know I mean it. It’s a long runway.”

  He walked a few steps, but turned and glared back at them. “Don’t worry about the underground for now. Like I said, I’ve got a team down there. They’re taking too long. I don’t think Brandt and his attack force are down there anymore. I want that bastard dead.” Belkin pointed at his deformed chin. “You see that? Chuck Brandt did that to me five years ago. He shot me with a sniper’s rifle from a mile out in rough waters. No other man alive could have made that shot. I was lucky he didn’t blow my brains out. He shot me from the deck of cargo ship in choppy waters off Somolia. That’s who you’re dealing with. Do not take him for granted. He killed my brother Vilen this morning along with two of our killers. Go out there. Kill him. Kill every member of his CIA black-ops assault team, and bring his body back here so I can piss on it.”