James Axler – Starfall

They nodded.

“You pull a blaster before they do, mebbe risk getting the rest of us chilled, I’ll punch your ticket for the last train to the coast myself.”

“They understand,” Donovan said defensively. He’d picked the men in the party himself, vouching for their skill and their nerve.

“I mean what I say,” Ryan growled. “Me, Jak and J.B.’ll go first. I count five guards that are up and moving. We’ll go in, take care of those. The rest of you get down to the riverbank. Wilcox, you get on that sixty-footer, make sure you can get the engines started when we need them. Otherwise, we’re all dead meat. Dean, you’re with him. Cover fire. But only after all hell’s broke loose.”

Dean nodded.

“When we get to the river,” Ryan went on, “the rest of you put as many boats out of commission as you can. Quiet. Slash the gas lines, put river mud in the tanks, cut the electrical wires or any other thing that comes to mind. The fewer of them we have chasing us, the better off we’re going to be. Don’t know how fast that big boat can go, but those water bikes will for damn sure be faster.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Ryan led the way into the brush, Jak and J.B. at his heels. Leaving the SIG-Sauer leathered, he drew the panga, the steel glistening in his hand. He stopped, chest flat to the forest floor less than three feet from a man sitting guard on a toppled tree covered in orange fungus.

The guard was dressed in worn clothing like most of Barbarossa’s group. He carried a single-shot 12-gauge that sat across his knees as he sucked on a sugar stick.

Ryan came out of the brush as soundless as a big cat stalking game. Reaching around the man, he drew the panga across his victim’s throat. Warm blood doused his hand, and the man thrashed in his grip, kicking out his life in seconds. Ryan kicked sand over the spilled blood and left the corpse propped up in a sitting position with the shotgun.

Pulling back into the brush, Ryan located his next target. A woman stepped into the tree line carrying a lever-action .30-30. She was thin and slatternly, black hair cut short around her face.

Ryan almost lost her in the thick trees for a moment, but she wasn’t moving quietly. The sound of her footsteps gave her away. He didn’t know how many of the pirates were women, but a good number of them were. Donovan had mentioned Barbarossa hadn’t been too selective in choosing the people who followed him.

But they were all dangerous.

And all it took at the moment to be deadly was a single scream.

Trailing the woman, Ryan watched her select a tree, then kick the brush. Satisfied that nothing crawled, slithered or crept through the nearby brush, the woman lowered her trousers and squatted.

Pale flesh gleamed against the dusty black leathers she wore. She rested her head on her crossed arms atop her knees, gazing up at the treetops as she pissed.

Ryan closed on her. He struck while she was still squat­ted, clapping his hands on her head and twisting it vi­ciously. Her skull separated from her spinal cord with a single, definite pop.

He kept her in a squatted position so her dying reflexes wouldn’t kick the brush and make noise. When she was still, he shoved her forward. She fell facedown in a heap.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder and saw the Armorer tucking a corpse into the brush less than a dozen feet away. They moved back toward the camp.

Sunlight started to streak the tops of the trees around them, showing signs of invading the campsite.

Another guard walked a perimeter, obviously restless and not too pleased with his assignment. Heavy lidded and young, he looked as if he’d rather have been asleep. Ryan reached out from the tree line, grabbed him by his long hair, twisting him as he pulled him into the brush.

His free hand wrapped around the hilt of the panga, Ryan slashed the heavy blade at the man’s throat. The sharp edge cleaved through cleanly, for a moment exposing the white bone of the spine at the back of the man’s throat. Then blood wept into the cut Ryan dragged the body farther into the trees, almost fin­ishing decapitating the dead man in the process. He felt tense as he returned to the camp, automatically locking on to the female guard closest to his position.