they squeeze the swollen skin and pull at the fresh stitches across his forehead and his hairline. He winces and stifles the urge to cry out. The goggles are in place, but they aren’t working.
“Who has eyes?” a faraway voice whispers, the sound echoing through the hangar.
He’s not alone.
“Almost online,” a 2nd voice answers, this one closer. “Come ON!”
This voice is only feet away. SHIVERblinkSHIVER An sees the soft green glow as the goggles come to life. Only three meters away.
“I see him!” the man blurts.
But he doesn’t shoot. He must have lost his rifle in the explosion. The ghostly light frames the edge of his face, his scruffy beard, gnashing teeth. It all surges toward An, who flops to the floor, aims his pistol, and fires.
The man falls against him. Dead. A knife stabs the floor just next to An’s ear.
BLINKBLINKshiverBLINKshiver.
Close one.
An pushes the man off shiver and feels the goggles blink again and finds the switch.
The room turns green.
It is indeed the hangar.
A shot screams from the far side of the room and misses An by a less than a meter. He spots a large blinkblink a large man shouldering a rifle. No goggles. He’s guessing. Firing toward the commotion. An raises the Glock, takes his time, and fires a single round. It passes through the man’s front hand and enters his skull directly over his right eye. He falls.
An pries a knife from the dead man’s hand, inspects it. Blinkblink. It has a 30-centimeter straight blade with a single edge and no serrations. Shiver. It’s more like a small sword than a military tactical knife. Probably this man’s prize possession, his weapon of choice. His signature.
Not anymore.
BLINKBLINKSHIVERSHIVERBLINK
An slaps himself, runs across the hangar, whispering, “Chiyoko Takeda Chiyoko Takeda Chiyoko Takeda.” He bobs and weaves just in case, but no shots come. He finds it blinkblink finds it odd. This is a large ship, probably a Type 45 destroyer, and even a skeleton crew would require over 100 seamen. By his count, he’s only killed 17. That means more will be coming.
Or maybe it means the rest of the ship doesn’t know about An. They don’t know what’s happening below deck. Maybe An’s a secret.
He scurries around an amphibious vehicle and between two pallets stacked with cargo blinkshivershiverblinkblink with cargo wrapped in plastic and nylon webbing. Three meters away is an open doorway, a set of stairs inside, going up, up, up.
A Type 45 destroyer has a blink has a blink has a helipad. Maybe a Merlin Mk1or a Lynx Mk8.
An has logged 278 simulated hours on the Merlin and 944 on the Lynx, plus 28 hours in a real one.
An makes for the door.
blinkblinkblinkblinkblink
He hits the narrow stairs and goes up.
One deck.
Up.
Two.
Up.
Three.
The air cools and he smells the blinkblinkblink the salty sweetness of the sea and best of all SHIVER best of all SHIVER best of all he hears the whomp-whomp-whomp of a chopper’s rotors coming to speed.
Thank you, special forces.
BLINKBLINK.
An is a few steps below the door that leads to the helipad. It’s open. The ship’s engines throttle up, as if the hunk of metal and electronics and weaponry is nervous. He feels the first breeze of the rotor wash from the helicopter and pulls Charlie’s coat closed around him. He sees the sharp, full moon, the sky clear and the stars bright and the void limitless above.
BlinkSHIVERblink.
Chiyoko would have liked this night, An thinks. Would have seen the beauty where I can’t.
An rips off the goggles, the straps tearing his bandages and popping a couple of stitches.
He has to get to the chopper.
He peers over the last BLINK last step. A Lynx Mk8, just as he hoped. He’s lined up perfectly with the cockpit—beyond it is the stern of the ship, and then the blackness of open water. He spies twinkling lights along the horizon. A city in the distance. He glances at the sky. Sees Cassiopeia a few degrees above the Earth. Wonders if the SHIVERBLINKSHIVER the keplers are watching him right now, wonders whether they are cheering.
BLINKSHIVERBLINK.
He wants to kill them all for what they did to Chiyoko.
Snuff it all out everywhere for infinity in every direction for all time.
All of it.
blinkSHIVERblinkSHIVERSHIVERBLINK.
An moves to the doorway. The chopper’s lights are off. The pilot is going to take off blink take off blink take off dark.
Now or never.
There’s a 20-millimeter machine gun in the Lynx’s bay that’s aimed right at the empty expanse of deck that An has to cross. He hopes the airmen in the chopper won’t break every protocol in the book and open fire while still on the deck.
An bolts, firing the Glock at the cockpit, but the rounds bounce away, zinging into the rotors.
At two meters he stops firing, holding three rounds in reserve. The chopper rises off the deck slowly. An reaches blinkSHIVERblink the side door just as it’s sliding shut. An fires. The copilot falls into the cargo area, his helmet tearing away from his exploded head. An breathes out, leaps up, scrambles in. SHIVER. The pilot spins in his seat, his Browning perched on his shoulder, but An fires his last two rounds and the pilot falls to the side.
BLINKBLINK.
The Lynx lurches to port as the dead pilot pulls at the stick.
An drops the pistol and vaults over a long metal box in the cargo area, landing in the copilot’s seat.
He gets a strange feeling as he passes the box.
A feeling of calm and peace.
He flicks an array of switches, disabling the pilot’s controls, and takes the copilot’s stick. Floodlights from the boat illuminate the bridge.
BLINKSHIVERBLINKSHIVER.
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
